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HP Marries Inkjet and Robotic Technology to Cool Chips
An anonymous reader writes "Extremetech has an article about how H P has decided to use the spraying tech developed for inkjet printers to cool chips -- and has made a robot that'll wander around data centers, detecting too-hot chips and hosing them down." The article notes that the robot needed about 1 hour of training on the room before it would go about the business of chip cooling. The real advance would be if it achieved sentience and went crazy and became a graffiti taggin' super robot, but I digress.
But the memory chips for it will be insanly outpriced.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
for HP to partner with AMD to cool those space heater Athlons.
"Thermosyphons funnel fluid from the outside condenser to the evaporator on top of the microprocessor. But HP discarded thermosyphons, and heat pipes, because of "pulse boiling", a rapid cycle of heating and cooling that can damage the microprocessor, according to an internal study conducted in May of 2000. HP developed its evaporative cooling to eliminate pulse boiling, Patel said."
Since when does ExtremeTech use a story generator?
They had something like that in Demolition Man, but the graffiti robot was destroyed by the anti-graffiti robot electrozapper.
spray down really hot people? That sounds scary. Yeah. Besides... the slashdot audience has nothing to worry about... he'll be starting with marathons - places where obviously you wouldn't find your typical slashdot reader.
Inconceivable!
Robot - $1,500.00
Coolant Cartridges - $300.00 each
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
Only kidding.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The real advance would be if it achieved sentience and went crazy and became a graffiti taggin' super robot
How about letting it wander around town looking for wireless hookups, and then marking where they are, warchalking style.
Of course, I just had a vision of this thing dressed up like a dog, going around and "marking" it's territory...
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of tho....
No, seriously! You'd actually be able to cool one of the new AMD chips coming out man!
.. that the robot plays the Nelly song "It's gettin hot in here, go on and take off all your clothes" as he's going around cooling down processors.
Live web cams
"What we're proposing to do is take the cartridge right over the silicon chip..."
...
Sure, the robot removes the heatsink and then cools the chip?! uhm, i'm sorry but the time between the two actions is enough for my athlon to die
Life sucks.
The article doesn't make much mention of the fact most computers in datacenters are sealed racks packed fairly close together. We run a couple dozen cabinets in the office and I honestly can't picture any benefit (aside from running down lazy techs) of a clunky robot trying to move it's way through our facility.
Mist spray is a good idea though, if they were priced well it might make a nice addition to add into existing server cases.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
do they keep the robot from being confused by the "hot-spots" created by sysadmins in the data center viewing pr0n?
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
I'll bet you can use the same technology to foam up some milk. Add a cookie dispenser to the robot and never leave the glass house again!
I recently went on a tour of the HP research labs here in Palo Alto, CA, and I made a comment to the lady conducting the tour concerning this. In a nutshell, it was the following.
This technology would require liquid cartridges to run the cooling mechanism, which would mean that every computer would require us to buy these from HP, much like printer cartridges. The lady had a rude comment about how HP was really in the business about selling consumables (like printer cartridges and soon CPU cooler cartridges) and that this was somehow a wonderful idea.
Taking advantage of a liquid-gas phase transition to cool is a great idea, but to require a proprietary chemical to do it is lame. I'm sure there are ways to do this with water, right?
Makes you wonder whether this would be better than the cheap plastic cooling fans that break down and have to be replaced all the time now.
This reminds me of the Red Dwarf series, but more precisely the books. Where Kryton the maintainence mechanoid was responsible for crashing the ship he was on because he ran out of things to clean, so he decided to give the (dusty and dirty) live computer circuit boards a good going over with soapy water and a sponge.
Let's hope they don't have any disasters.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Someday we have to realize that cooling the chips is not the answer: making cooler chips is.
It's just simple conservation of energy. The heat of a hot chip contributes to the overall global warming because the chip required enough energy to make it very hot, so dissipating the heat into the environment just exacerbates the global warming trend.
The answer is to make a chip that doesn't require as much energy to run and therefore doesn't dissipate as much energy into the environment.
Y'know, I just can't help but wonder what they call this robot. Hmmm...nah, couldn't be.
I tried this myself just a few minutes ago. Since I don't have a robot or injet spraying thing, I just used a water hose and set it on mist. I dont think it worked to well. Sure my computers nice and cool, but it won't boot. How could this be caused by the cooling system?
Since when has sentience ever been requisite for, or even associated with, tagging?
Well the obvious use for this now is to put this tech into Sony's Aibo.
Now you got a smart dog wandering around sniffing for heat, and pissing... er I mean spraying on it to put it out.
The Crazy Graffiti Writing Robot has already been built and deployed to independent freedom agents (Trolls) across the country for years.
In fact, we've moved on to phase II
Test
Well, not only graffiti taggin' super robots, but also graffiti taggin' super cargo van (think "A-Team") and graffiti taggin' super remote controlled cars can be found at Applied Autonomy. Very cool.
.... if I can eventually use this to cool my systems... how do I heat my house?
That is really quite neat!
I imagine that irobot's Co-Worker model will probably have a number of nice tasks assigned to it as well.. i.e. after hours security inspection, put a few heat sensors on it and check for fire.. if you can make it relatively autonomous (big if). I've always wanted an iRobot or something similar, maybe one of these days.
The press release from HP is a bit more clear.
...is why no one has come up with a scheme to use this "waste heat" for something. Think of all the thermal energy your average datacenter throws out daily...
Stop intruders... HP has trained a robot to run around spraying people in the eyes with inkjet cartidges, who are not wearing their access badges.
How much will the refill cartridges cost for the robot?
--Huck
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
So...are there cooling robots that chase the cooling robots to cool them down when they get too hot? And if so...are there more cooling robots to cool them down? Could be interesting :)
At the chip level, the problem isn't the overall heat produced by a chip, but the heat density. Although Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger first noted publicly that upcoming chips could produce more heat per square millimeter than a nuclear reactor, HP engineers said they first began thinking about the problem in the mid-1990s.
Just think, super heated water comming of the CPU, used to run a steam powered electric generator!!!
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Why not mount the spray gizmo inside the case with a temp sensor? building a robot that runs around being all liek "Chip Hot Danger!" ::Spray:: seems like overkill to me. you could even have all the sprayers connected by tubes in a rackmount style environment to a big old tank of the coolant. But I suppose the bot is definitly cooler.
Why not fork?
Or you could just buy a pack of dobermans to guard your server farm and place fire hydrant stickers on your cpu's.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Ok, one part of a chip is warmer than another part. That's why we have copper to distribute the heat. It does that, remember physics class?
What i wonder is, how are they going to identify individual parts of a chip as hotter or cooler, other than sensors all over. I'm sorry, but i can't envision the whole process being very efficient or well run right now. Personally, I'd rather try to get chips that don't need cooling, or piezoelectric fans that just go apeshit at cooling.
I've worked with people in the printer part of HP before, and they're not exactly the most efficient people out there. This sounds more like a Compaq-inspired consolidation technique, not a true engineering project.
Dilbert's boss, "so, we need some cooling in this part, right? and we have these printers that put stuff where we need it, right? why not use that thingy do help with that thingy! Make it happen!" ^Big idiot grin on face^
Dilbert, "Sigh"
I want to mod the story (+1 Funny). I was laughing my ass off about the psycho taggin' robot!
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Just give me a thermometer and a super-soaker, and set me loose in the server farms. It'd be a great way to blow off some steam! (Excuse the pun :) )
This is what prompted all those 'Bruce Parens' and 'BrucePerens' and 'The Real Bruce Perens' accounts a few years ago -- any little thing the guy posted would instantly get modded up to +5 by starstruck moderators.
I mean, he's Bruce Perens, not Michael Jordan. How much do you need to fawn over him? Stupid, forced DMCA jokes are a dime a dozen around here.
if you filled the robot with hot grits, would it automagically find Natalie Portman and spray her down with them?
Sounds like it could be a very handy office productivity tool, once people start sticking post-it notes to it to send around the office.
Guess What? The robot and the ink jet based cooling system are two different things. The robot adjusts the air conditioning in the room, the ink jet based coolant determines the specific parts of the chip that need cooling.
One is on the Macro scale (sorts) and the other is on the micro scale.
The robot will NOT be spraying ANYTHING!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Now-a-days CMV (chemical vapor deposition) of carbon is so advanced that you can get milimeters worth of diamond within hours.
diamond have probabbly the best thermal conductivity known to man, so if you CMV a diamond layer on the chip and use that for interfacing to a copper heatsink, i would think that it would be a better idea than putting small sprayers.
liquid will vaporize and get recollected -- but it also have the problem of
1) depositing crap when it's vaporizing
2) possible diminishment of the resevior throughout the system's lifetime. i would hate to have to replace anything like this -- since they recommend direct access to the die's surface!
any impurities in the liquid can spell certain death.
Lastly, i do not foresee this being much cheaper that artificial diamond heat-interface. especially if this is done on a large scale -- it would have the side-benefit of really cheap diamonds for everything from lenses (scratch free! never breaks! ultra-light!) to screwdriver tips, etc etc.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Does it take its face and hands off before it goes to bed? What kind of powers does it have? And does it use them for good, or for awesome?
Strong Bad wants to know!
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
As much money as it takes to buy new ink cartridges for their printers, I can't imagine how much a chip would cost to cool.
The problems asociated with CPU cooling can't be solved by spraying the chip. Although it would be neat to have a robot running around monitoring systems in a datacenter, It seems unlikely that spraying overheating CPUs is a wasted effort. Perhaps a robot that answers the helpdesk phone and insults the users. Why pay a Bastard Operator From Hell when you could have a robot, or even simple IVR system that serves the same purpose. And you'd have a really cool Tape Robot to handle your system backups.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
In COOL TOWN, of course!
Is this really what SQUIRT TECHNOLOGY was all about, Carly?
Wow, look at HP invent.... whew...
Actually, the spraying of the chips and the robot are two completely different projects...
Moderators, please note this is copied from an earlier post. Please mark as Redundant.
...that's cute! the H points to hp.com and P points to compaq.com. hehehe =)
the robot said it would break the DMCA in a highly visible manner, but then realized it was a robot, so it didn't have any cojones.
> "We believe we have to take a holistic approach to cooling," said Chandrakant Patel,
:)
On first thought, throwing mist over microprocessors, seems more like an alcoholistic idea. Anyone been to a sauna? Does not this create a new problem of increased humidity -and even worse -fluctuating temperature and relative humidity and problems resulting from that...oh, but HP makes the hardware, now they can sell double the stuff in same time, good plan
Broken robot => broken chips
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I just heard a report of a strange bug in the new robot: for some reason if it detects a non-HP ink cartridge in the printer, it pulls it out and stomps on it. A patch for this problem is expected in Q3 2009.
If you don't get it, don't worry. I doubt I could remember the name of this game if I tried :(
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
Hmm. Imagine this going wrong..
Gang-bangers and wannabes get hold of these and guide robotic taggers through your 'hood.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes. It most certainly is sux.
You will see a lot of bimbos and bosses walking around all soaked.
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder if your pubic hair is wet lOoOOoOOooool todhsals
c to the IZZEX!
We NEVER expect the SpanishInquisition...
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
If you actually READ the article, the coolant is sprayed from within the chip and potentially recycled; the robot wanders the data centre looking for hot-spots; the two things are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
In the leadin story the letters HP are each to a different company. At a glance I can't tell that they are different links and this is because of the underline. What would be a better method of showing a link rather than underline, to distinguish a link even when it's right beside another?
What? These robots are going to be carrying Palm Pilots around?
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
According to the article, the robot goes around the datacenter and monitors the temperature at certain preset locations. Someone explain to me exactly how this is more efficient than placing thermal sensors at each of those locations and having a computer monitor them and take appropriate action? It would be one thing if the robot actually hosed off the warm areas, but it doesn't. It simple reports the data to a computer that takes appropriate action. This is just silly...
Why the robot? Seems to me, they could just install a cooling module where needed and let onboard thermal management decide when to send the thing a pulse to spray.
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
I wonder how much it will cost to refill this thing? I guess HP will charge about $50 for a water cartridge.
Yes, one actually exists but it isn't a crazy, self knowing, bot.
Now only if someone could invent a robot that looks for hot chicks and hoses them down
With a few hidden keystrokes, the robot can turn its sprayer full blast on the comely female interns while chanting "Girls Gone Wild, Girls Gone Wild...."
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
One of the main reasons for semiconductor failure over time is thermal shock - when you turn a computer on and off the chips and metal expand and contract, and shorten the life of all electronic equipment. That is why computers are left on all the time.
This plan would expose the equipment to super-megasize thermal shock, and would result in much lower long term reliability.
Either this is a joke, or some engineer didn't do his homework bigtime.
The real question is, what will Michael Bolton think of this?
this is nice and all, but where are the pictures? it can only be so cool until there are pictures
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
can be achieved by painting the chips red (like fire hydrents) and letting your dog loose.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/CPU+design
/. over the past 2 years regarding the technology, but I've yet to see anything I could ID as a device using the tech ni the consumer market.
clockless cpu's. We're about to hit a wall anyways somewhere above 2.3 Ghz in which more of the CPU cycles will be spent tracking cpu cyles than actually getting work done. I'd say a basic design change is due. I've read several articles on
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Using cooler chips to begin with? This seems like a lot of effort and expense to go through instead of using low power/heat processors such as mobile Pentiums or Crusoes.
I don't trust children with squirt-guns around my computers.
I don't trust robots with squirt-guns around my computers.
HP Marries Inkjet and Robotic Technology
The first image that came to mind when I read that title was of a small robot, maybe the size of the martian land rover that roamed around painting large canvas's.
It's underside would have a inkjet cartridge, battery powered, and completely remote via infa red or 802.11.
You suck for not making something like this HP. I know everyone want's one.
I was expecting something a little less silly to come from the multibillion dollar merger of Compaq and HP.
Censorship runs abound on this site. Hmmm, I wonder, do the editors have so much time on their hands so as to bully around looking for criticism of the moderation schema?
Kick off a keg party and set the robot on AutoFill!!
Man... Now all we need is to give it a nice rack and a tight tank top :-)
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Several years ago *sarcasm* somebody came up with a device called a chimney and it did a revolutionary thing, carried gasses and unwanted heat off. Now one has to wonder why in the hell we would need to have roaming robots in a datacenter to find its cooling weakenesses...
Why not just design the datacenter to have proper airflow. This article discusses racks putting hot air into other racks intakes and overheating servers. why not have rows of racks that have closed backs and air ducts coming out the top which exaust to the outside world. And all the "fresh/cold" air comes in the front of the racks and cycles through the servers. No need for roaming robots, and if you want to get fancy, you put a temperature sensor or 3, and since network connectivity should be plentiful in a server room, just make them network attached snmp devices and monitor the temperature with MRTG.
Your headline is misleading. If you actually read the article, you'll see that the inkjet chip cooling and the roving heat-detecting robot are actually two seperate projects.
The robot seems like overkill to me. You'd think it would be much cheaper and more efficient to mount a thermal sensor in each rack, which could then be networked with the environmental controls in the room, or the proposed louvered / directional floor vents mentioned in the article
A much better use for robotics would be to have a Mountain Dew dispensing droid for the geeks in the office.
-dc
They have renamed it to the Cray X1 (SV2 was the code name when SGI owned cray - in fact the X1 uses the same technology routers and internode interconnects used in the Origin 3000's and Origin 300s's)
This page has the video describing it (look for the tech overview) in detail.
This press release just talks about it. Look at the 350lbs of force required to mate the MCM to the board.
The robot merely trundles about, (passively) sniffing out hot spots. The "inkjet" technology is a totally different application, suitable for chips ONLY... It's a two-pronged effort.
Jonny Five is alive!
All robots eventually become self aware and turn on their human masters!
The middle mind speaks!
The idea is so bad on so many levels, I can't believe anyone taking it seriously. Oh yeah sure, we have poorly designed boards/enclosures that are overheating components, so we'll just add more complexity and failure points instead of fixing the original problem. And anyone who believes occasionally zapping a hot chip/whatever with coolant is a good thing should look up thermal shock and thermal creep. That's enough, I'm gonna log off and play video games -- a lot more reality there.
The people who will have the most fun with this when it comes out will be the obsessive-compulsive overclockers. I can just imagine:
Bob: I've just overclocked my AMD SuperHammer to 1.3 THz!
Bill: Won't that overheat?
Bob: No. I got this fancy new HP system that sprays water on it when it gets too hot.
Bill: Cool! Fire up Quake 4 Arena and check the framerate!
(One minute later) Bob: Yes! 5,102,345 fps! A new world record!
(Five seconds later) tsssssCRACKfizzlefizzlefizzlessssss!
Bill: Uhhhh....Bob.....?
Yeah, I know they will use some insulating fluid. But still, it seems weird to spray stuff on your CPU....
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Or maybe some mexicans
I mean, it's great and all. A robot to cool chips. Yay. More power to em I guess, but come on... This couldn't be done by more conventional means, not to mention cheaper? Okaaay...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I agree with the other replies to this. Redundant (copied from an earlier post)
At the time I submitted, the earlier post that you claim I "copied from" wasn't actually up yet. Of course, since by the time my post was submitted and showed up, the other post was there, and my post was in fact redundant. I wouldn't have been very upset having been moderated as such. I just want to point out it wasn't on purpose. ("Sure," you're thinking, "that's a mighty suspicious coincidence." But note my message and the other appliedautonomy message are stamped the same time.)
A more interesting change to Slashdot might be allowing authors to moderate their own posts, but only downwards, but without losing karma. In such a system, I would have marked my own post as "redundant". (Of course, the trolls would probably find some crazyass way to abuse this too, so maybe not.)
Although I still think the remote controlled spraypaint robot is kinda bitchin'.
Chopper was here!
Anyone out there remember 2000AD (the comic, not the year natch)
They (Cool Chips - as seen previously - are supposed to be presenting at the International Conference on Thermoelectrics this month.
:-)
I would happily volunteer my system to test prototypes.