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New 3D CPU Water Cooling Method

captain igor writes "According to this story on Wired News, a new company launched by researchers from Stanford has come up with a way to layer a silicon network of tiny tubes on top of a microprocessor. The system then uses a solid-state motor (no moving parts!) to pipe cold water through the silicon network. According to the article, this system can handle 1000 watts (yes, a kilowatt) per square centimeter."

239 comments

  1. Oh Great.... by GeneralEmergency · · Score: 5, Funny



    Now my PDA can wee-wee in my pocket.

    --
    "A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
    GeneralEmergency
    1. Re:Oh Great.... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

      Then your PDA would become be a PDL, wouldn't it?

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    2. Re:Oh Great.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...followed by a burning sensation.

  2. modded offtopic by WolF-g · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    did anyone else just notice a several minute long outage of /. ???

    1. Re:modded offtopic by manifest37 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      yep

    2. Re:modded offtopic by c_oflynn · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe they were Slashdotted?

      Wait a minuite....

    3. Re:modded offtopic by exhilaration · · Score: 3, Funny

      I thought the network guys had finally blocked Slashdot. It's a good thing it came back before I finished loading my gun.

    4. Re:modded offtopic by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      It's still going on, sometimes the page comes up, and sometimes it times out. Not sure if it's slashdot or the upstream, doesn't seem to occur long enough to to traceroute it.

      Ah well, it's the net :)

      Update: Nope, it's slashdot. Tried to post this and got:

      500 Internal Server Error

      An internal server error occurred. Please try again later.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    5. Re:modded offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I hate that stuff like this gets modded off-topic. Where is the forum to discuss things like this? God knows that Taco will never admit that the site has problems from time to time.

    6. Re:modded offtopic by shadowbearer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree, and it looks like someone (or a couple someones) used up all their mod points nailing this thread offtopic.

      Now I consider it ok to mod the first post or maybe a couple subsequent posts offtopic, but threads like this also serve to let people know that they aren't the only ones experiencing problems. This can prevent a lot of head-banging or wondering whether their ISP is choking. So please don't blanket mod everything in a thread like this offtopic. It's rude and counterproductive.

      Fer chrissakes, mods, use some sense.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    7. Re:modded offtopic by srvivn21 · · Score: 1

      It's likely the editors, not the moderators. And it's happened before. Google slashcode bitchslap and be edified. I don't know how true this IRC Transcript is, but I know that it's old. :o)

    8. Re:modded offtopic by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      What's your point? What do the moderators have to do with an old irc post from CT, or some obscure (not going to dig thru it) google search link?

      This is not worth my time...

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    9. Re:modded offtopic by srvivn21 · · Score: 1

      I'm responding to your assertion that it was moderators that "wasted" mod points on making a whole thread Offtopic.

      Don't be so quick to disregard responses you are given. Or do. No skin off my nose.

      Because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to spell it out for you.

      Slashcode (the source for the engine that Slashdot uses) had (and likely still has) a function available to the "editors" called bitchslap that enabled them to moderate an entire thread as "-1 Offtopic". At one point it also lowered the Karma of all affected posters such that they posted at -1 by default. The IRC chat is (in theory) a discussion between many of the Slashdot editors and a Slashdot member who was affected this way by the bitchslap.

      It has an arguably valid purpose, but is on occation used in a manner that many Slashdot members consider inappropriate.

      There. I hope that wasn't too great a waste of your obviously precious time. Bah.

    10. Re:modded offtopic by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      They couldn't have used it this time; I posted before the Offtopic mods were done and I was not modded offtopic along with the others; my insightful mod came later.

      Anyway, I still think it was important. Slashdot was experiencing problems at the time and the only reason I knew it wasn't my connection at the moment was because others were too.

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    11. Re:modded offtopic by srvivn21 · · Score: 1

      *shrug* I don't disagree on the importance, and have noticed some oddness with Slashdot recently myself.

      My goal was to illustrate that the moderators are not the only entities with moderation capability, and if you see a whole thread knocked offtopic, it's likely not individual moderators.

  3. Am I the only one? by PrintError · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm still wary about pumping water into my computer. What if one of those microthin pipes were to burst? Then you'd get a microsized stream of water shorting out your not-so-micro-priced processor. I'll stick to windtunnels and heatsinks... maybe a heatpipe or two.

    1. Re:Am I the only one? by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am sure they could use a nice nonconductive liquid like alcohol, though it would reduce its ability to handle watage.

      --



      I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
    2. Re:Am I the only one? by rpozz · · Score: 1

      Most good water-cooling systems are incredibly well-made, and have practically no chance of a puncture. You should be more worried about that 2 pound fan hanging off your vertically-mounted motherboard.

    3. Re:Am I the only one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, that'd be great! Instead of burning out your CPU electrically, you could do it chemically!

    4. Re:Am I the only one? by Cat_Byte · · Score: 1

      It isn't the water that shorts out circuits, it's the impurities like salt. I lost the link but there's a page out there where some guy submerged his entire motherboard into a cooler of supercooled non conductive light oil. It was quite entertaining to read if someone knows where it is ;) Anyway, you can pour distilled water on a running circuit and as long as there is no salt or conductive polutants to get into the water it will keep right on trucking along.

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
    5. Re:Am I the only one? by Aardpig · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I'm still wary about pumping water into my computer. What if one of those microthin pipes were to burst? Then you'd get a microsized stream of water shorting out your not-so-micro-priced processor. I'll stick to windtunnels and heatsinks... maybe a heatpipe or two.

      If the solid-state pump failed, this could quite easily happen. The water around the CPU would boil pretty quickly, and the huge pressure increase as it turned to steam would cause the silicon tubes to explode. So, on top of the water sloshing around your computer, we have small explosions going on. Hmmmm...

      --
      Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
    6. Re:Am I the only one? by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      Is this this one you were thinking of? Cool experiment. :)

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    7. Re:Am I the only one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am sure they could use a nice nonconductive liquid like alcohol, though it would reduce its ability to handle watage.

      If i'm not mistaken, water in it's chemically pure state won't conduct electricity; it's the impurities (i.e. minerals, flakes of your pipes, etc.) which conduct. As long as they use water that's pure, no problem for sure.

    8. Re:Am I the only one? by Canthros · · Score: 1

      100% pure water does not exist. You can't make it; the stuff dissociates, at very low levels, into impurities (H-, OH+) even when by itself.

      So it will conduct. It just won't conduct a whole lot.

      --
      Canthros
    9. Re:Am I the only one? by dtperik · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, on top of the water sloshing around your computer, we have small explosions going on.

      Yeah. But it'd sure be fun to watch through that plexiglass side of the aluminum case.

      By the way... is Slashdot being.., er.. /.'ed?

    10. Re:Am I the only one? by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

      There was also this article....

      Wow. Slashdot is really choking on something. Hope it isn't mineral oil :)

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    11. Re:Am I the only one? by DonGar · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure that it's REALLY hard to get water that's pure enough to stop conducting. Standard disstilled isn't good enough.

      --
      plus-good, double-plus-good
    12. Re:Am I the only one? by 241comp · · Score: 1

      Or gasoline. Only in a pure state though - the gas you buy at the pump is somewhat conductive due to additives.

    13. Re:Am I the only one? by aceat64 · · Score: 0

      That wouldn't be a good idea, I could imagine someone having a leak and the heat from their overclocked processor ignighting fumes from a leak...KABOOM!

    14. Re:Am I the only one? by mvdw · · Score: 1

      So use transformer oil, like used in big power transformers. Or something similar. There must be plenty of chemicals out there with high levels of thermal conductivity but are fairly inert.

      We use isopropyl alcohol here at work to clean our circuit boards, and one day one of my colleagues accidentally powered up his board while it was still in the bath being washed. It powered up fine, with no difference to being in open air. The conclusion is that there are liquids that can be used for this purpose, without risk of frying the device.

    15. Re:Am I the only one? by trippinonbsd · · Score: 1

      I made $5 betting this one guy in phyics class that water didnt conduct electricity. He thought that I was some kind of a moron, and took the bet up. I laughed at him for the next 10 mins while he tried to push 6v across any amount of distilled water until he finally gave up, and reluctently handed me a $5 bill.

    16. Re:Am I the only one? by memechaser · · Score: 1

      That may be the story. But comeon, how do you "accidently" power on the board while still submerged?

    17. Re:Am I the only one? by mvdw · · Score: 1

      Because the bath where we used to clean the boards was on the bench - he forgot he still had it in the bath is all.

    18. Re:Am I the only one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't want to break with tradition by reading the article, but I would assume you'll still need those old fashioned passive cooling devices. This sounds like something self-contained to me -- i.e. this is a much better "Integrated Heat Spreader". No water will flow into and out of the chip's packaging. This will just allow for larger, hotter dies. You'll get a chance to buy a 2 pound heatsink because of this tech. Here's the reasoning: since we can't eliminate the waste heat, let's make chips that are more capable of taking it. The barrier they want to overcome isn't just heat -- it's heat density.

    19. Re:Am I the only one? by ColaMan · · Score: 1

      Double distilled (ie distilled from distilled) is fine. Well, conductivity from our still is about 18MOhm... that's *practically* nonconductive.

      For instance, 240V across 18MOhms is 0.01mA. For a comparison, a typical earth leakage breaker will trip at 30mA and stop you from being electrocuted.

      Problem is water is pretty much a universal solvent. Any stray coatings / impurities / dust on your motherboard will quickly make your water conductive again.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    20. Re:Am I the only one? by KermitJunior · · Score: 1

      I made $5 betting this one guy in phyics class that water didnt conduct electricity.

      I'm glad to see educational institutions are still at an all time high.

      --
      There is a Universal Life Value Check it
    21. Re:Am I the only one? by jovlinger · · Score: 1

      It can't be nonconductive; the pump works on electrolytes. I imagine that it is basically a small version of the "caterpillar drive" used by red october in the book of the same name.

      It's an ion drive, but for liquid. For that to work, you need ions, and thereby conductivity.

      All this from a quick skim of the article, so add salt (:-)) to taste.

  4. wow they actually made a radiator ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the level of technology is astounding, maybe they could scale it up to say cool a mechanical engine in an automobile or even an air conditioner ?

    nah thats unpossible

  5. Pump with no moving parts? by Keck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forget about the cooling, tell me more about that pump! /me googles electrokinesis ..

    apparantly it uses osmotic pressure to drive it, how cool is that?

    --
    A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
    1. Re:Pump with no moving parts? by javatips · · Score: 1

      As cool as the chip it's cooling ;-)

    2. Re:Pump with no moving parts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forget about the cooling, tell me more about that pump! /me googles electrokinesis ..

      apparantly it uses osmotic pressure to drive it, how cool is that?


      Bah. That's nothing. I use telekinesis it's cheaper.

    3. Re:Pump with no moving parts? by tarm · · Score: 1

      Read more about electroosomtic pumping here.

      The pdfs are a bit dense, but still very interesting.

  6. Diamond age by Jhan · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. There was a bit in there where a future super computer was hooked up to a pipe delivering ice. As the batch runs, ice is sucked through the computer at amazing speeds, passed straight through the CPU. and boiling water is delivered (in large quantites) at the bottom. Not what I would like for me home PC :-) Still, should make water cooled systems much more efficient.

    --

    I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.

    1. Re:Diamond age by HalfStarted · · Score: 1

      Hell... you are missing the best part of that... put together the right way you would never have to leave your chair to get more coffee... great for all night coding sessions...

      --


      Have you thought for yourself today?
    2. Re:Diamond age by Jhan · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure I would trust insta-coffee in the working fluid of my wc system. But who knows, maybe the CPU will perk up a little extra.

      --

      I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.

    3. Re:Diamond age by edrain · · Score: 1

      Now if only it could be used to recycle / filter liquid body waste ala Dune. Then you'd never have to leave your desk for anything. Just reverse the flow of coffee in -> urine out.

    4. Re:Diamond age by Dhar · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just reverse the flow of coffee in -> urine out.

      And that would be....urine in -> coffee out? No thanks!

      -g.

    5. Re:Diamond age by visgoth · · Score: 1
      And that would be....urine in -> coffee out?

      Sounds like the recipe they're using in the vending machines here...

      --
      My patience is infinite, my time is not.
  7. G5 laptop now possible? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure those enormous heat sinks in the G5s are just for show. ;)

    1. Re:G5 laptop now possible? by Cecil · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, actually, they're not because the G5 is excessively hot, nor are they for show. They are for maximizing the efficiency of the 9 (VERY low speed) fans in moving heat out of the system with minimal airflow

      People assume that because the G5s have a extremely well-engineered cooling solution that the G5 is also extremely hot. It's simply not true, it's all about noise reduction.

    2. Re:G5 laptop now possible? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And people assume a lot of things. People like you.

      Are the heat pipes, thermal paste, and ducting behind the CPUs on the G5s for the "efficiency?"

      Those suckers get HOT. No assumptions necessary. THAT'S WHY APPLE IS MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE. But don't trust that, why not ask Apple themselves?

      http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/18/ 1822219&mode=thread&tid=137&tid=180

      I ASSUME that you have information that this info straight from Apple is incorrect?

      http://iambitterandjustplainwrong.org. Now mod me down for correcting a kool-aid drinking Apple zealot.

    3. Re:G5 laptop now possible? by Cecil · · Score: 1

      Well, if you're going to be confrontational about it, let's go:

      Feel free to quote meaningless news quips all you like as long as they imply whatever you want to imply.

      Me? I'll take some facts and numbers out of official specification documents: The G5 runs between 19 watts of heat dissipation and 42 watts, depending on its clock speed (source as HTML, as PDF)

      The Pentium 4 desktop version runs between 60 and 80 watts (source). Indeed, the G5 in its desktop version is in fact competitive with Intel's low power Mobile Pentium 4-M processor for notebooks, which ranges from an impressive 7 watts up to 35 watts (source).

      Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

      P.S.
      This is the direction in which intel is headed with its Mobile Pentium 4 (not M) processor. 70 watts in a laptop.

  8. 1KW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how long does that take to cool down a beer thats been sitting in the glovebox all day?

    1. Re:1KW? by Cat_Byte · · Score: 1
      how long does that take to cool down a beer thats been sitting in the glovebox all day?

      If you live as far south as I do you don't worry about cooling it, you worry about cleaning up the explosion.

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
  9. How long... by YuppieScum · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...before someone at IBM notices their use of 'MicroChannel'?

    --
    This sig left unintentionally blank.
    1. Re:How long... by frankmu · · Score: 1

      ...before someone at IBM notices their use of 'MicroChannel'?

      doesn't SCO own IBM?

      --
      Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
    2. Re:How long... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. But SCO is suing IBM for misappropriating MCA devices way back before PCI was misappropriated.

      They are suing on the grounds that there are still old computers that are 'benefitting' from thier intellectual property.

  10. It's not a motor by signe · · Score: 3, Insightful


    It's not a solid state motor. I dare say, there's no such thing. By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts. In fact, the word "motor" appears nowhere in the article, so I'm not sure where the submitter dreamt that up.

    It's a solid state pump that moves an electrolyte through it using osmotic pressure.

    -Todd

    --
    "The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
    1. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where's the definition that says a motor has to turn? A motor turns energy (any type of energy) into mechanical energy. That doesn't necesarilly imply that the motor iself has to 'turn'. You are partially correct though, a pump *is* a motor.

    2. Re:It's not a motor by CaseyB · · Score: 3, Informative
      By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts.

      No. A motor is by definition "one that imparts motion". This device certainly qualifies.

    3. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=motor

      Seems a perfectly good use for the word 'motor.' If you're going to be a pedant, at least try to get it right.

    4. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's cute. No one ever, ever refers to such a thing with no moving parts as a motor, until today, but it's apparently correct because of some loose dictionary.com definiton.

      Prime mover I would accept, but a motor? Motors have two parts: the stator and the rotor. If it has no rotor, I dare say it isn't a motor.

    5. Re:It's not a motor by Alien+Being · · Score: 1

      "By definition, a motor turns"

      Linear induction motors don't turn.

    6. Re:It's not a motor by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      That means Halle Berry qualifies as a motor. Vroom!

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    7. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are wrong. You can make a motor to pump (salt) water without moving parts. Do you remember "The Hunt For Red October"? It used nuclear reactors to drive a Laplace-Lorens motor. In basic terms: You make a big magnet and put 2 wires with energy near it. The (salt) water closes the circuit. The (eletric) current flows, but the magnet repels it (Q = v x b). In the end, water is repelled :) No moving parts, and water flowing. It was already put to work, but the efficiency is very low.

    8. Re:It's not a motor by CaseyB · · Score: 4, Insightful
      No one ever, ever refers to such a thing with no moving parts as a motor, until today Probably because such devices are rare.

      but it's apparently correct because of some loose dictionary.com definiton.

      No, it's correct because that's the definition of the word. Just because you've created some narrower meaning in your mind doesn't make it so. I imagine that many people considered "vehicle" to mean "something that conveys cargo on land or on water" before airplanes were invented.

      If it has no rotor, I dare say it isn't a motor.

      That's funny. You must be terribly confused by the way all those space vehicles get into orbit without motors!

    9. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts.

      By definition a motor turn energy into motion. A rotor turns.

      Not directed at signe personally,

      [rant]Come on people. If you going to say someone else is wrong, please check first. It's not that hard and it's very rude to just attack without checking your facts.[/rant]
    10. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's really cute is you are still telling people they are wrong, but haven't looked up the definition yet. So you don't like dictionary.com, go find someplace that agrees with you. Good luck.

    11. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Here's another definition. I hope you lay away at night tonight thinking, "God, I made a total fool of myself on Slashdot today. Not old did I attack someone wrongly, but when people pointed out my mistake, I just attacked again. I looked like a total idiot."

      BTW, ever here of "motor control" applied to muscles? Do your muscles have a rotor? Don't answer that. I don't need any more of your foolishness.

    12. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I've "here"d of motor control applied to muscles. I'm so completely wrong. I'll never post again.

    13. Re:It's not a motor by Courageous · · Score: 1

      No one ever, ever refers to such a thing with no moving parts as a motor...

      http://www.apogeerockets.com/rocket_motors.asp

      Don't act like an authority when you're not.

      C//

    14. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Deal.

    15. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, liquid fuel rockets are engines, not motors, so a purely liquid fuel rocket would get into space on a rocket engine, not a rocket motor.

    16. Re:It's not a motor by catbutt · · Score: 1

      Would you call this a motor than?

    17. Re:It's not a motor by CaseyB · · Score: 1

      Wow, you're gonna ride this sinking ship right to the bottom, huh?

      Be sure to let NASA know about your little theory on the non-existence of rocket motors.

    18. Re:It's not a motor by bluesnowmonkey · · Score: 1

      It's not a solid state motor. I dare say, there's no such thing. By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts. In fact, the word "motor" appears nowhere in the article, so I'm not sure where the submitter dreamt that up.

      I dare say, the submitter is probably among the 99% of the population that doesn't haven't any inclination to learn the semantic subtleties of the words "pump" and "motor."

      Prick.

    19. Re:It's not a motor by ShadowBlasko · · Score: 1

      Palino? Is that you?

      GOOD GODS MAN! It's been too long!

      Good point on the motor thing though. I was thinking the same thing.

      email me or something will ya?

      Shadow

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
    20. Re:It's not a motor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, because it doesn't impart motion. The operator of the pump does.

  11. Pictures?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where are the frickin pictures man?! I want to see it.

    NR

  12. Yeah, it can handle a 1kW per 1cm^2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is until one of those tiny pipes clog up with organic matter, or something.

    Ack. Slashdot is being slashdotted.

    1. Re:Yeah, it can handle a 1kW per 1cm^2 by HermesHuang · · Score: 1

      I would hope they have it completely sealed so nothing can get into the pipes after it gets filled. And hopefully they'll use something with more cooling efficiency then water... although water is pretty darned good. But if they're sealing it up anyways they might as well use something better.

    2. Re:Yeah, it can handle a 1kW per 1cm^2 by gladbach · · Score: 1

      ::insert pr0n related splashguard joke here::

      --
      "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
  13. Call intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We have found the solution for prescott!

  14. Quality Journalism: by pavon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is pretty cool, and I thank the poster and slashdot editors for putting up the story. I just thought that this was funny:

    Apple, Intel, DARPA and Cooligy did not respond to requests for comment.

    Well that includes just about everyone mentioned in the article, so exactly where did the information come from? I see, I'm reading a posting about an article about another article about information gleaned from a website. Oh, well at least they told me :)

    1. Re:Quality Journalism: by AlecC · · Score: 1

      I see, I'm reading a posting about an article about another article about information gleaned from a website.

      You're reading Slashdot - what did you expect?

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  15. Full Steam Ahead! by twoslice · · Score: 2, Funny

    If we put in a miniature steam turbine we can generate power to charge laptop batteries and perhaps add a steam whistle to the sound system. Actually, since I can't get any sound out of my laptop a steam whistle would be a nice addition!

    --

    From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
    1. Re:Full Steam Ahead! by ErikZ · · Score: 1

      I'd rather have a mini pipe organ. With a USB plug!

      --
      Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
  16. Cool Suit by binaryDigit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    /. is acting weird, so someone will probably have posted a similar idea, but ...

    If you could figure out a way to sew this into material, then you could have some really "cool" (literally) clothing. I'm sure people like the Army would be very interested in a suit or body armour that offered effective cooling, esp in the desert where a system with a motor could be undesireable. I know it would be sweet to get a set of motorcycle leathers with something like this built in (those Texas summers get a bit toasty).

    1. Re:Cool Suit by ERJ · · Score: 1

      Well, this really wouldn't work...

      From what I can see, this is just a better way of providing water based cooling. The action of water moving through the system doesn't magically destroy heat. All it does is move to to another location where it can be more easily dispered (by a fan or something to that effect). Sure, you could run water through the clothing, but you would still need a mechanism to remove the heat from the water.

    2. Re:Cool Suit by blibbleblobble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "If you could figure out a way to sew this into material, then you could have some really "cool" (literally) clothing."

      It was demonstrated on british television a few years ago (more than 5 years), being used by firefighters, who could carry a refrigeration unit on their back, and walk through flaming buildings without getting hot (tubes built into the clothing)

    3. Re:Cool Suit by watzinaneihm · · Score: 1

      I think a more immediate use would be in Internal Combustion engines. A whole lot of heat is produced by engine (almost 40 percent of total fuel consumption) , this method would be ideal in those situations if the 1000 watts/cm^2 is correct. Engines would become a whole lot smaller and efficient.

      --
      .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
    4. Re:Cool Suit by Politburo · · Score: 1

      This does not change the amount of heat produced, but provides a more efficient way to move the heat away from the heat source. As such, it would have the possibility to lower the size of the radiator, not the engine. I haven't RTFA, so I can't say if such a system would be sensible for an auto cooling system.

    5. Re:Cool Suit by watzinaneihm · · Score: 1

      Ofcourse this would affect the radiator mainly.This will in no way by itself make engines better.But I was thinking that this would allow you to use newer kind of materials for the engine, allow you to put in larger/smaller cylinders, allow you to make the cylinders in odd shapes etc. etc.
      This indirectly would make the engines run better and smaller. This technology was developed for Chips but I think this should be portable to car engines too (the only difference from the current water cooling tech i can see is that they got the pipes to very small sizes and removed the mechanical pump).
      Also if this scales to really high temperatures then aircraft engines could get a lot better since the main limitation they have is materials.But I suppose that would be hoping for too much from a technology which is still a water based cooling technology (maybe someone could change the cooling fluid?).

      --
      .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
    6. Re:Cool Suit by homer_ca · · Score: 1

      They already make cool suits for race car drivers. They pump cold water through tubes in the suit. This technology could miniaturize the pump but would add greatly to the complexity of the suit if the pumps are built in. Plus you'll still need a water chiller and power for it. Not much of a problem if you have power and minimal cargo room like on a motorcycle. More of a problem if you're on foot.

    7. Re:Cool Suit by cens0r · · Score: 1

      Nike makes something like this for football players. They wear a special vest. When they come to the sidelines between series they are hooked up to water tubes which ciruclates cool water across their torso.

      --
      Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
    8. Re:Cool Suit by dedalus2000 · · Score: 1

      That would be sweet. I can picture it clearly the soldiers now cool and comfortable in their new desert fatigues the ones with the huge cooling fins sticking out of the back. Yeah, that would rock. Oh, but the ambient temperature is higher than their body temp and all the fins are doing is gathering heat and efficiently moving it to the soldiers skin woops..

      --
      My keyboads not woking popely.
    9. Re:Cool Suit by dedalus2000 · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't reduce the size of the radiator because after the heat is transferred to the electrolyte solution it will still need to be transferred to the surrounding air otherwise it builds up in the system. All this system is a better way for the heat to get to the solution and a more efficient pump to carry the coolant to the radiator.

      --
      My keyboads not woking popely.
    10. Re:Cool Suit by Glonoinha · · Score: 1

      -(maybe someone could change the cooling fluid?).

      Suzuki GSX-1100R/750R, circa 1986 through ?? a few years ago. Used the same lubricating oil that circulates through the engine as a coolant (had a massive oil cooler, ran the oil all through the engine and actually had streams of oil directed on the hot spots.) Theoretically the engine was more efficient because it could run a little hotter than a water cooled engine without concern for a boil-over or friction induced ultra hot spots.

      Pretty much the same effect as the link above to the guy that submerged his motherboard in mineral oil, just continually cycle the oil through a heat exchanger to keep it fairly cool and you could pretty much go crazy with heat, I guess.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    11. Re:Cool Suit by Glonoinha · · Score: 1

      Consider evaporative cooling, particularly on a motorcycle rider because the wearer is moving fairly fast and is exposed to the constant stream of wind.

      At that point all you need is a water reserve and a simple mechanism to pump is slowly onto the evaporative material, insuring that it gets distributed to all the places needing cooling.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    12. Re:Cool Suit by homer_ca · · Score: 1

      Evaporative cooling won't work in humid weather, but it's great for dry heat. They make neck bandanas filled will water absorbent gel. They'll hold enough water to keep your head cool with evaporative cooling for a pretty long time. Another trick if you have a vented nylon jacket is to wear a wet t-shirt under your gear.

    13. Re:Cool Suit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then maybe an evaporator would help?

  17. Whenever I see these ideas by zymano · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Cooling with water reminds me of primitive automobiles and their liquid cooling . Most of the energy of an auto is wasted HEAT.

    Something new needed in chip technology. Moores law is about to END.

    How about opical-electronic computer chips. Lets reduce heat ! These chips already exist ,just google(optielectronics) but most are used for high speed networking. Optical buses are achievable in my opinion right now. Logic gates are another story.

    1. Re:Whenever I see these ideas by numakris · · Score: 1

      Uh, actually, the first "primitive" autos were air cooled, airplane engines are often air-cooled, however modern cars are almost always water-cooled. that's why there is water in your radiator.

    2. Re:Whenever I see these ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Moores law is about to END"

      *yawn* They've been saying that for years now, and yet processors keep getting faster and faster...

    3. Re:Whenever I see these ideas by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 1

      I've been playing with what you refer to as 'optielectronics' as a concept for years and I did come up with a way of creating a gate, but not on the scale needed for this sort of thing... Maybe if someone into nano work ever wanted to help out I could reduce the size of my idea, but since I'm not a scientist by trade (it's jsut my hobby). I doubt any serious scientist would want to help me...

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    4. Re:Whenever I see these ideas by zymano · · Score: 1
  18. stove top boiling water experiment by goombah99 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    lets do some order of magnitude, spheical cow type estimates using simple everyday experience in the kitchen.

    A typical stove top burner is order of magnitude 1000 watts spread out over around 500 sq cm: so were talking order of magnitude less than 10 watts per sq cm.

    if I take a teaspoon of water an put it on a sq cm of stove top and it boils in far less than a second. really almost instantly so its probably like less than a tenth of a second.

    Thus if this thing is going to not explode, the flow rate required to avoid boiling at 1000 watts /sq cm is going to be on the order of hundreds to thousands of teaspoons per second.

    If I take a tiny swizzel straw and try to suck through it I cannot suck 1000 teaspoos per second. Since my ability to suck is probably within an order of magnitude of the cavitation pressure for atmospheric pressure water a pump trying to flow this stuff through an equally small crossecttion may not be able to sustain such a flow rate. And any on-chip pump is probably going to have a simmilar crossection for its fluid intake port. (off -chip is another matter)

    unless this thing is actually flowing the water based on the steam pressure itself, I'm skeptical that this can meet the claimed specs.

    but I assume these people aren't fools. Perhaps the science reporter slipped a few digits.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by SparklesMalone · · Score: 1

      Except the material in the stove coils is designed to maximize resistance and convert the electricity into infra-red light. The chip silicon, of course, is designed to have the minimal resistance needed to achieve its purpose.

    2. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Cat_Byte · · Score: 1

      There is one big difference though. The stovetop is nothing other than a dead short for the wattage. The watts going through a cpu aren't hooked end to end as a dead short. For V=IR you have a much different value of R in a cpu. Much of the volts and amps are dispersed to ground. But I do see your point ;)

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
    3. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 1

      Sounds to me like the system is closed, so it may have high enough pressure and low enough temperature to remain liquid, or very low quality steam. All conjecture of course, but if the coolant changed to steam I would fully expect the device to explode.

    4. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Thagg · · Score: 4, Informative

      Say water goes in at 30 degrees C and comes out at 50 degrees C. According to the spectacular Google calculator, 1000 watts is 239 calories per second, and it takes 1 calorie to increase the temperature of 1 cc of water 1 degree C, so you'd have to move 239/20 or about 11 cubic centimeters of water through the cooler every second assuming a delta-v of 20 degrees C. Doesn't sound unattainable.

      thad

      --
      I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
    5. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by rcw-home · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is a lot easier if we stick to metric units.

      The factor they always leave out is how much of a temperature rise one can tolerate at the heat sink. Let's assume that the incoming water will be no higher than 40C and the CPU can become no hotter than 60C - that's 20C rise.

      1 kilowatt is 1000 joules per second, or 238 gram calories per second. Conveniently, a gram calorie is the energy needed to raise a gram of water one degree celcius. For water, one gram is also one milliliter. So, a single gram of water will be raised 238 degrees C in one second. We don't want it to be raised more than 20C, so we need to exchange water at a rate of 238/20 = 11.9 mL/sec.

      Heat sinks aren't perfect - the outgoing water will always be colder than the CPU. Let's pretend that this sink is 50% efficient (the CPU rises to a temperature, relative to the incoming water, of twice that of the outgoing water). Ergo, we need 23.8 mL/sec.

      How is this a problem?

    6. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by stu72 · · Score: 2, Informative

      OK, let's see here, first off, most stove top burners are closer to 2000 to 3000 Watts, not 1000.

      http://www.consumersearch.com/www/kitchen/ranges /c omparisonchart.html

      But regardless, your analogy is much too much work, let's just figure out how much water you can boil each second with 1KW of power.

      This page:

      http://www.infinitepower.org/calc_watts.htm

      Says you can evaporate 0.0001172 gallons each second. According to Google, this works out to:

      http://www.google.ca/search?q=0.0001172+gallon&i e= UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&me ta=

      Or about 0.44 mL

      So as long as you keep more than 1/2 a millilitre/second flowing over your square centimetre you won't be boiling. Of course to be safe you'd probably want a lot more than this.

    7. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is a pretty good off the cuff Spherical Cow analogy. I would suspect that the network of silicon tubes uses something akin to counter current flow to achive higher rates of cooling.

      Also, with a small network of tubes the relative surface area of the water to the heat would be higher than a teaspoon on a stove. While this probably means that the water would vaporize more quickly this might not be a bad thing. There was (is?) a company that produced PC cases that contained a compressor and supercooled liquid systems that operated on the vapour change principle. (I cannot for the life of me remember the company - they used to supercool the first Athlons.) When water changes into water vapour it absorbs more energy undergoing the phase change than when it is in liquid water alone. Also, water vapour can be moved about more quickly than water as it is less dense. Therefore, I suspect that if this is not a typo in the article, that liquid water is pumped into the chip, and it undergoes a phase change to steam which can only exit the chip in one direction - thus adding to the pressure in the system. The evaporation of the water would cool AND help push the coolant throughout the cycle.

      So that is my guess - countercurrent flow to maximize the amount of heat removed from the chip, and the phase change of water to absorb more head and provide power to moving the water about the system.

      --
      Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
    8. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on, try to hack my 31337 firewall! [127.0.0.1]

      Doh, piece of cake. I just telnetted in, typed "root" and tried to think what password would a person like you use, and my first bet was the right one. You use really lame root password on that box!

    9. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      So as long as you keep more than 1/2 a millilitre/second flowing over your square centimetre you won't be boiling. Of course to be safe you'd probably want a lot more than this.

      Close, but you showed that as long as you flowed 1/2 ml/scm2 (hmm) you wouldn't boil all the water. If you want to avoid boiling, you have to know that starting temp and the ending temp has to stay below boiling. So that all the heat it taken up by temp change, not by phase change.

    10. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This thing probably can't flow 23.8 mL/sec. tubes too small. Also, what about the purity of the water? Don't they have to use some sort of specially prepared water in advanced chemistry experiments, and would this stuff have to be used to prevent the tubes from clogging up after a while?

    11. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to be pedantic, but it takes 1 Joule to increase the temperature of 1 cc of water 1 degree C, not 1 calorie.

    12. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your analysis is broken entirely.

      The temperature of a red hot burner with a pot on it is probably FAR higher than a CPU would be allowed to get in the first place. This causes your example to be off the mark from the start.

      The boiling mechanism likely approaches a "dryout" mechanism where an insulating layer of steam forms between the unboiled water and the surface of the pan. The temperature of the surface is hardly reduced.

      Don't believe it. Surf up the video of the physics professor drinking liquid nitrogen. The same heat transfer mechanisms are in effect for this gag. The amount of nitrogen is small, and the relative temperature of the mouth is so high, that the nitrogen boils off without freezing the dude's lips off.

      Also, your sucking ability is not a strong as you think. All though you might suck like the dickens causing your jaw to get sore, you can still only manage a few inches of vacuum. This pump can probably produce substantially more difference in pressure.

      Your heat transfer mechanism is nothing like the cooling of the CPU using these nanotubes. No conclusions can be drawn from what you stated.

      Don't confuse temperature with heat.

    13. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by MConlon · · Score: 2, Informative
      1 kilowatt is 1000 joules per second, or 238 gram calories per second. Conveniently, a gram calorie is the energy needed to raise a gram of water one degree celcius. For water, one gram is also one milliliter. So, a single gram of water will be raised 238 degrees C in one second. We don't want it to be raised more than 20C, so we need to exchange water at a rate of 238/20 = 11.9 mL/sec.

      You're ignoring the convective heat transfer coefficient for water.

      The heat transfer rate is a product of the temparature difference between the wall and the free-stream fluid, the surface area, and the convective heat transfer coefficient.

      MJC

    14. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Nucleon500 · · Score: 2, Informative
      Nope, a joule is a newton meter, a watt second, or .239 calories.

      And since we're being pedantic, everyone else in this thread has neglected that the energy to raise 1 cc of water 1 deg C varies based on the water's initial temperature, and is only 1 calorie at 15 deg C, or 4 deg C, or the average between 0 and 100 deg C. It's not that big a difference, though.

    15. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by jerde · · Score: 1

      Much of the volts and amps are dispersed to ground.

      Uh... A Watt dissipated is a Watt dissipated. If a stovetop were a dead short, it wouldn't produce much heat. (or another way of looking at it: the rest of wiring in your house would produce just as much heat as it would)

      A stovetop is a resistive load, which absorbs electrical energy and releases it as heat.

      The power consumed by a cpu, measured in Watts, is the electrical energy absorbed by its electrical resistance, rereleased as heat.

      No difference. Nothing "disbersed to ground" any differently.

      V=IR might have different values, but power doesn't care, since it's based only on P=IV.

      - Peter

      --
      INsigNIFICANT
    16. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The higher the pressure, the more energy that a substance can hold.

      In a closed system.
      The pressure can be as high, as the seals are capable of holding.

      They would use a better coolant than water probably.

      Therefore the flow rate is probably much less than you are guessing.

    17. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by UncleFluffy · · Score: 1

      ... at atmospheric pressure

      --

      What would Lemmy do?

    18. Re:stove top boiling water experiment by chthonicdaemon · · Score: 1

      You're ignoring the convective heat transfer coefficient for water.

      You can do that, because we are just assuming that all the energy dissipated exits in the water, thus we can only look at the temperature increase of the water to find that energy.

      --
      Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
  19. old news by FuzzyGuru · · Score: 1

    another article at The Register had this info out at 08:37:00 Tue Oct 07 2003 GMT (04:37:00 Tue Oct 07 2003 EDT)

    "Cool" technology nevertheless. Anything to reduce the size of heatsinks is appreciated. Plus Intel needs this - The P4's and Xeon's heatsinks are still soome of the biggest on the market (retail box, not OEM). Even AMD's Athlon 64 has a smaller heatsink.

    --
    OK - who stole my duct tape?
    1. Re:old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apart from laptops, the physical size of the heat sink isn't all that relevant. I would be happy to have a heat sink 5x or even 10x the current size on my desktop machine, just so long as it was QUIET.

      For me, one of the main limitations on using my home computer is the constant whining from all the cooling fans, especially if I want to listen to music or DVDs. I wouldn't use a CD player that made that much noise; same for a PC.

      - PW

  20. Next step: in the processor by hcetSJ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how long until we have nanotubes running all through the processor. There's a professor at my school doing research on 3-D photolithography, which would allow much more complex structures to be built out of crystalline silicon. This sounds like a good application.

    --

    This side up.
    1. Re:Next step: in the processor by Andorion · · Score: 1

      Like the cooling system in an engine block :) Awesome.

      ~Berj

  21. Overclockers rejoice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is all.

  22. Vaporware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We won't see anything from that because of all the patents they did certainly claim on this. Therefor nobody will produce these things except some tiny unkown company (Cooligy) and they (Cooligy) will fall as well. The technology will be forgotten - for good.

  23. I'm sure it will be sealed with non-water coolant. by antimith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering the consequences of a little algea or whatever in tubes so small, I'm sure they'll provide the coolant(likely non-water) and perhaps even an on board Closed coolant system.

    Considering the size of 3rd party coolants shown on site's like Tweak3d.net I wouldn't be suprised at all if the setups didn't look like some of ThermalTakes larger models.
    If most of the tubing is kept in the in-die, and the motor is solid state (not sure what size we're talking about) then I'd envision something that would leak about as mutch as an air cooled system. hehe.

    --
    "Oh... There it goes... my brain stopped" - Ed from Ed, Edd, and Eddy.
  24. When did "solid-state" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    start to mean 'no moving parts'? I don't get it. It's an electronics term. I daresay the regular pump I use for my fish is made up of solid-state matter too. Solid-state used to mean 'not using a vacuum to get an electronic effect' and that's pretty clear to me. But there were no moving parts in a vacuum tube either, so now vacuum tubes are solid-state??
    Cool.

    1. Re:When did "solid-state" by kunsan · · Score: 1

      "solid-state

      Solid-state refers to electronic components, devices, and systems based entirely on the semiconductor. The expression was especially prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the transition from vacuum tube technology to the semiconductor diode and transistor. More recently, the integrated circuit (IC), the light-emitting diode (LED), and the liquid-crystal display (LCD) have evolved as further examples of solid-state devices.
      In a solid-state component, the current is confined to solid elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it. Current flows in two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged electron deficiencies called holes. In some semiconductors, the current consists mostly of electrons; in other semiconductors, it consists mostly of holes. Both the electron and the hole are called charge carriers.

      An example of a non-solid-state component is a cathode-ray tube (CRT). In this device, electrons flow freely through a vacuum from an electron gun, through deflecting and focusing fields, and finally to a phosphorescent screen."

      --
      The facts expressed here belong to all, the opinions to me. The distinction between fact and opinion is yours to decide.
    2. Re:When did "solid-state" by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      the liquid-crystal display (LCD) have evolved as further examples of solid-state devices.

      Don't you find that ironical, that while a motor that is all composed from solid (though moving) components is not considered solid-state device, while LIQUID cristal display is?

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  25. Don't you mean... by product+byproduct · · Score: 2, Funny

    1000 watts (yes, 0.9765625 kibiwatts) ?

  26. Re:Power from waste heat by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, I wonder what the theoretical limit is on converting waste heat back into electricity in a laptop... would it be worth the extra weight? Even if it's NOT worth the extra weight, it might be fun to do it just because it can be done.

    Off the top of my head, though, I'm not aware of any laptop-scale device for generating power from a heat source.

  27. Active Micro-Channel Cooling? by Bob+Cat+-+NYMPHS · · Score: 1

    I hope IBM's lawyers don't hear about this.

  28. itanium by turgid · · Score: 1

    Maybe this is what itanium needs to make it onto the desktop and into the 1U rack.

    1. Re:itanium by dcmeserve · · Score: 1
      Maybe this is what itanium needs to make it onto the desktop and into the 1U rack.

      It would also need a much smaller die size; the tremendous amount of cache it has on-board pushes the price up way past the desktop range.

      --
      "Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
  29. Electrolyte by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    The article has a link to another story at Stanford. The water contains an electrolyte, Borax. The flow rate in the Stanford story is tiny, and the chip temperature rise is significant. The guys in the primary article must have significantly improved on this, if they're claiming 1kW capability.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  30. Seymour would approve of the focus by Baldrson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When the first supercomputer was built on Seymour Cray's farm by 34 guys with 1 PhD among them (a junior programmer) the key technology turned out to have been refrigeration devised by a kid from the Amana Colonies. Seymour spent his career fighting heat as he strove to get path-lengths between components smaller thereby driving up power density as the cube of his system's scale and speed. He most certainly would have approved of the focus if not the approach taken by the Stanford team.

  31. What if a nano-pipe bursts? by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    How much force would it take to burst a pipe? I would think that would be instant death for your cpu... imagine THAT for a blue screen of death -- "Sorry, your CPU has drowned. Go buy another one!"

    --
    stuff |
  32. Why a Pump? by HaeMaker · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Couldn't the tubes be designed to use the heat to move the water?

  33. Sprung a leak maybe.. by LostboyTNT · · Score: 1

    Maybe they were testing the water cooled system, and sprung a leak, and slashdotted themselves.

    --
    LostboyTNT MercyHosting.Com

    Server-Status.Com

    50Bux.Com

    TLDR.Com

  34. Screw 3D CPU's by SoTuA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Put it in the main CPU, not just the GPU. That way we can get rid of the screaming banshees/cooling fans in our towers. (So you can leave your favorite p2p running overnight without the whirrrrrrrring)

    1. Re:Screw 3D CPU's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why was this moderated "insightful"?

      Did you RTFA? The chip itself is 3D, unlike the current flat ones.

    2. Re:Screw 3D CPU's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Did you RTFA? The chip itself is 3D, unlike the current flat ones.

      This is the only reference to "3-D" in the whole article:

      "Located just a millimeter from the surface of the chip, the dense, 3-D network of microchannels ferries a constant stream of cold water that conducts heat away from the computer processor to a radiator on the outside of the machine."

      So where's your "3-D chip"...

      The headline sucks, tho... it reads like:

      a) New (3-D CPU) water cooling... or

      b) New (3-D (CPU) Water cooling)

  35. Noooo, you've got it all wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A Kilowatt is equal to 1024 watts. No, no wait. I know this one.

  36. Another design by pesc · · Score: 1

    Why not do a more radical case-mod? Build an aquarium and put the motherboard at the bottom. Remove all fans and put good heatsinks on. Have a longer SATA cable to the HD (and other peripherals) and put it outside of the aquarium. Fill the aquarium with a suitable clear liquid that don't affect the MB or electronic signals. Glycol?

    Now I would have a passive glycol-cooled computer!

    I wonder if this kind of cooling would work. I'm not sure how to calculate such things... Which is the best cooling fluid?

    Ah yes, and if anyone know what the colored stuff in lava-lamps is, please tell me. Pouring some of that stuff in could make the case-mod very interesting...

    --

    )9TSS
    1. Re:Another design by caffeinex36 · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, and if anyone know what the colored stuff in lava-lamps is, please tell me. Pouring some of that stuff in could make the case-mod very interesting...

      wax?

    2. Re:Another design by d'fim · · Score: 1

      I tried to build my own lava-lamp once.

      Both the wax and the clear fluid are complex compounds which the manufacturer regard as trade secrets.

      --
      Adherence to the truth is a form of disloyalty.
    3. Re:Another design by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      The stuff?

      According to this place, this is the patent relating to the ingredients:

      Controversy, Controversy, Controversy - Like most things having to do with lava, the official United States patent is a thing of uncertainty. For many years, we've been told that the US Patent for lava lamps was patent #3,570,156 of March 16, 1971. But recently we've come across a very, very convincing document from 1July 11, 1968 showing US Patent #3,387,396. Read on!

      US Patent #3,570,156
      Although this type of motion lamp was invented in 1963 by Edward Craven Walker, and patented in England by his company in 1964, this US Patent dates to March 16, 1971. (Can you believe 8 years passed before the lamp was patented in the States?)
      Of course, the patent itself is vague concerning proportions of ingredients. The lava component is said to consist of "a solidified globule of mineral oil such as Ondina 17 (R.T.M.) with a light paraffin, carbon tetrachloride, a dye and paraffin wax."
      The clear liquid is roughly 70/30% (by volume) water and a liquid which will raise the coefficient of cubic thermal expansion and encourage the movement. The patent recommends slip agents such as propylene glycol for this. However, glycerol, ethylene glycol, and polyethylene glycol (aka PEG) are also mentioned as being sufficient. May did some research of these chemicals and found that these aren't cheap. The best prices she found are at VWR Scientific Products where 500ML of propylene glycol is 10.75 plus shipping. We never tried this formula (it seemed over our heads).

      US Patent #3,387,396
      Submitted by David George Smith of London on behalf of Craven Walker's Crestworh Company. The patent falls under Display Devices. The Abstract of the Disclosure reads, "A display device comprising a container having two substances therein, with one of the substances being of a heavier specific gravity and immiscible with the other substance, with the first substance being of such a nature that it is either substantially solid at room temperature or is so viscous at room temperature that neither will emulsify with the other liquid, and when heat is applied to the container, the first substance will become flowable and move about in the other substance.

      ...The liquid in which the globule is suspended is usually dyed water, but not necessarily so. The other liquid is chosen with very many considerations in mind, including the relative densities of the liquids at the desired operating temperature; the fact that the liquids must be immiscible; the fact that the surface tension must be such that the globule does not adhere to the walls of the container; the relative coefficients of thermal expansion of the liquids; and the shapes that are obtained during operation. A suitable liquid for the globule has been found to comprise mineral oil, paraffin, carbon tetrachloride and a dye or dyes. However, undue shaking or sharp impacts, especially during transport of the display device, can cause total or partial emulsification of the globule."

    4. Re:Another design by dave1212 · · Score: 1

      Here, you can try these instructions, they might work for you.

      There's a few other ones you can try as well, the list is here.

      Most of the instructions they provide work without having to acquire anything illegally. (trade secrets?)

    5. Re:Another design by mnmoore · · Score: 1

      But wouldn't that kill the fish?

  37. where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, I get the one kilowatt of heat out of the CPU.
    Where do I put it?

    One kilowatt is like having a burning torch. Not so easily disposed of.

    1. Re:where? by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1

      Into the steam powered motor driving the hard drive.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  38. Vapor cooling by The+Fun+Guy · · Score: 1

    This is an old technology... you can create a tremendous amount of attractive-looking vapor by emitting a bunch of hot air in the right direction. Although there's a short-lived burst of heat and light (and sound and fury), pretty soon, everybody is cool to the technology.

    --
    The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
  39. Java processor by mcguirez · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow! Not only can I run Java on the
    processor - it can brew it too!

    I can't wait to get my NeverEmpty
    coffee cup on ThinkGeek!

    --
    When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
  40. News? by Flabby+Boohoo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    (Page updated December 13, 2002)

    Doesn't seem like it is a new idea...

  41. One thing that can generate that heat by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 1

    Great Sott! What was I thinking?!

    --
    I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
  42. A patent for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A quick search revelas:

    6,606,251

    as at least one patent they have on this. Many figures, much details.

  43. Suggestion for Cooligy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Love that name Cooligy. May I suggest they lock in celebrity spokesperson Coolio. Saw him on Hollywood Squares which means he is desperate and you can get him cheap. Imagine Coolio's cooing Cooligy's cool coolers.

  44. Utter rubbish! by sigmaIII · · Score: 1

    You still have to do something with the heat, nano pipes will just move it from one part of the die to another. The article makes no mention of radiators or heatsinks which will be needed to take the heat from the chip and dump it into the surrounding air.

    Once you add a conventional heatsink to the mix this just becomes another aid to better cooling efficiency - like using a copper cold plate or thermal paste.

    1. Re:Utter rubbish! by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      Note one thing. 3D CPU.

      Nowadays a CPU is a chip, maybe 1cmx1cm, and at most 1mm thick. This is because it's about the only shape that will let you dissipate heat efficiently enough.
      Now imagine a CPU of about the same "copmutational power density" (or slightly lower - room for pipes reserved inside) that is a block of 10cmx10cmx10cm. Or specifically modified block of "nowadays" processors that form such a block, all with built in "distributed computing" drivers. A cluster of 10.000 2GHZ CPUs that fits in your palm.

      10 terahertz CPU equivalent for your PC.

      Sounds...promising, doesn't it?

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  45. future cooling by LousyPhreak · · Score: 0, Redundant

    is it just me or is anyone else concerned about the increasing heat generated by current processors?

    now that water cooling seems to be getting standard for cooling our great new opteron/p4 with about 100W power dissipation how long will it be that we need to cool our pc with liquid nitrogen just to be starting windows?

    but on the other hand its kinda cool to know that your next gen processor could make you a cup of coffee in an instant

    lp

    --
    -- Karma: beyond good and evil - mostly affected by posting political
    1. Re:future cooling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why would you want to start windows?

  46. I concur by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Yep you're answer is better than my initial post. I agree with your math. (4.8Joules/gm-C)

    my post erred because the reason the water boils is not the heat flux but the stored heat in the stove top coil. The transient delivery of this stored heat vastly exceeds the rate of power delivered to the stove and thus the water boils fast. but this would not be sustained.

    I withdraw my original answer.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:I concur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have a gas stove, so I couldn't figure out where you were coming from. Nice to see someone here admit they made a mistake and reply politely. Thanks!

  47. Innovation, but in the right direction? by tigress · · Score: 1

    While I think this is a great step forward in terms of cooling, I'm afraid that if this gets widely implemented, it'll end up making processors less efficient in terms of heat management.

    A modern processor creates around 60-70 watts of heat. Heat management is currently a problem in many systems, and the fact that the processors convert so much power into heat creates a need for larger power supplies. Now, if this was to be widely implemented, the incentive for reducing the heat waste in the processors would be largely negated, which would result in even higher power requirements and so on.

    In my opinion not a good vision of the future.

    1. Re:Innovation, but in the right direction? by sketerpot · · Score: 1

      Well, imagine that you made a smaller and faster chip that dissipated 40 watts, but over less area than the current processors. This would have lower power requirements, but it would need better cooling (or my brain's screwed up, take your pick).

  48. OT slashdot's performance by Theatetus · · Score: 1

    Tracert hops through VA/DC waaaaay too much (but it always does), then gets to WA state.

    I get some slowness at cable&wireless in CA, then it hits Exodus (66.35.192.0/18) and just dies. Somebody go beat up Exodus...

    --
    All's true that is mistrusted
    1. Re:OT slashdot's performance by shadowbearer · · Score: 1


      Sheeeezus, it was hard to get a reply screen up for to this post. It didn't timeout...it'd just sit there, and nothing would happen for a while, then I'd get returned to the same screen I clicked from.

      I get somewhat the same thing on a few tracerts but I'm more convinced from some of the stuff I've seen that it's slashdots servers ----

      *Internal errors
      *non-functional page links (particularly preview and submit :)
      *The above in the first paragraph (which is very common right now)

      Now let's see how long it takes to actually get this posted :)

      Slashdot is dying. The news hit the bealeagured /. community hard today as... aw, wtf, nevermind :)

      Update, mayhaps a scripting error, not sure. Did someone do some updates there today? It certainly wasn't happening this morning, and doesn't look like a bandwidth problem. Ok, off to try posting this again...

      and again

      again

      again, this time with a "connection refused" error.

      *sighs* going elsewhere for the afternoon, I think

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
  49. Re:Power from waste heat by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1
    The laws of thermodynamics say that you need a large temperature difference to efficiently generate power from heat. That's why power plants use steam or gasses heated to hundreds or thousands of degrees to run their turbines.

    A semiconductor chip won't work if the temperature gets too much above 100 C. Therefore, by definition, you would be stuck with a very low power generation efficiency.

    Your efficiency is limited by trying to extract work between the (say) 100 C CPU and the 25 C ambient environment. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I doubt that you could recover more than a single-digit percent of your input power in this situation. What's more, even if you try to extract power from low temperature differentials, you tend to need very large equipment to do it. Not a good fit for laptops.

  50. Re:Power from waste heat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A Peltier type cooling element will generate electric current given a high temperature gradient, and is small. The amount of current though is very small :)

  51. Hooray! by WalterDGeranios · · Score: 1
    Couldn't the tubes be designed to use the heat to move the water?

    Hooray! The dawning of a new era! A physical design that destroys entropy and creates information!

    1. Re:Hooray! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it could be. It's called a thermosiphon reboiler. No violation of Newton's laws, as the energy comes from the heat dissipated.

  52. Heat Transfer by nuggz · · Score: 2, Informative

    They claim the potential to move 1kW through this surface, but they don't mention the conditions.

    If you make it really cold on one side, and really hot on the other this could happen by itself.

    Think of your cooler, it doens't leak heat much on a cold day, but on a hot day it will warm up much quicker.
    Change your temperature difference, the heat flow rate will change.

    On your boiling water, take steady state water evaporation vs energy input. Your 1kW Burner isn't going to be boiling thousands of teaspoons per second. You have to heat it up to the boiling point, then apply the energy to vapourize it.

    Energy=Power*time = Mass * Heat of vapourization +Mass * Temperature Change * Heat Capacity

    More people should take physics.

  53. Re:Power from waste heat by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 2, Informative
    Maximuim Theoretical Efficiency, due to the second law of thermodynamics, is (Thot-Tcold)/Thot, where the temperatures are measured in Kelvins. So for boiling exit water (100C = 373K) and room temp (20C = 293K), so about 20%

    The engineering problem is getting Thot to be the microprocessor temperature, not the exiting cooling water temperature - this would give you much better efficiency, but at the possible cost of cooling power.

    --
    It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
  54. Researcher to give Caltech Seminar (abstract) by mfago · · Score: 1
    Oddly enough, I received the following seminar announcement this morning (hope Dr. Santiago doesn't mind):


    Electrokinetic Microfluidic Systems
    Prof. Juan G. Santiago, Stanford
    October 14, 3:00 pm

    Abstract

    Electrokinetics involves the interaction of solid surfaces, ionic solutions, and electric fields. Electric fields can be used to generate bulk fluid motion (electroosmosis) and to separate charged species (electrophoresis). Microfabrication technology has enabled the application of electrokinetics as a method of performing chemical analyses and achieving liquid pumping in electronically-controlled microsystems with no moving parts. These systems have the potential to provide higher throughput, reduced sample consumption, and higher sensitivity than traditional devices.

    This seminar reviews progress at Stanford including fundamental studies of electrokinetic flows with ionic conductivity gradients and a review several novel methods for on-chip capillary electrophoresis (CE). Novel methods developed for on-chip CE include shape-optimized channel turns, optimal injection methods, and a two-dimensional system combining CE and isoelectric focusing. We are currently studying both conductivity-gradient-based sample stacking and a newly identified flow instability that occurs in electrokinetic microflow systems with conductivity gradients. Field amplified sample stacking leverages conductivity gradients as a robust method of increasing sample concentration prior to CE separation. We have developed a dispersion model that can be used to optimize the sensitivity and resolution of sample-stacked assays. We are studying electrokinetic flow instabilities by obtaining flow visualizations for a systematic variation of experimental parameters, and developing theoretical models including linear analysis and nonlinear simulation. This work shows that electric body forces associated with the accumulation of charge in the bulk liquid are crucial to these instabilities. Suppression or avoidance of electrokinetic flow instabilities is directly applicable to sample stacking as conductivity-gradient-induced instabilities limit stacking efficiency. Promotion of electrokinetic instabilities enables rapid mixing at micron scales, which is critical to increasing the throughput of a variety of binding assays.


    Too bad I cannot go...

    BTW, WTF is up with /. today?
  55. Re:Matraxx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check here

  56. Fuel Cell --Power and Cooling by Pr0f · · Score: 1

    As you well know Laptops have long have problems with both power and cooling. The power problem is coming closer to being solved with the advent of the fuel cell. As a by product of hydrogen and oxygen molecules combining and leaving behind their spare electrons, H20, or water is produced. Now I may be just a lowly computer science student but is it not feasible to collect these spare water molecules in order to further cool our overheating processors and onboard graphic chipsets using this cooling method?

  57. VLSI Liquid Jets by BanjoBob · · Score: 1

    I was working on a project in the early '80s to make ink-jet nozzels (pumps) in VLSI. We had a lot of nozzels on a single VLSI chip that could move ink very rapidly. All the logic and such was also on the chip. The pumps worked very efficiently and consumed very little power. They never seemed to get clogged either. This may be a nice new application for an old technology.

    --
    Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
  58. Cooligy did not respond to requests for comment by butane_bob2003 · · Score: 1

    As they were too busy chanting: 'IPO! IPO! IPO!..'

    --


    TallGreen CMS hosting
  59. Re:Matraxx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Don't go there. It's goatse related.

  60. Why cool with water, when you can cool with ice? by ninejaguar · · Score: 1
    Current processors run hotter than ever. Yet, innovative cooling devices previously reported by Slashdot may have been ahead of their time (truly "watercooling"). But, times may be catching up.

    = 9J =

  61. Wait! by MrScience · · Score: 1

    Didn't the computer industry take over watts yet? Shouldn't that be 1024 watts?

    or

    Insisitive clods! They should say 3412 BTUs!

    --

    You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco

  62. Re:Power from waste heat by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Peltier's cell. (can exchange voltage into temp difference and opposite) But you'd need a decent cooling device (radiator? Water cooler?) on the other end. You can't generate energy from heat itself. You can generate it from temperature difference (and thus heat flow) though. Plus this would impair heat dissipation, rather undesired with processors. You surely wouldn't be able to build a perpetuum mobile like cooling system (powered only by CPU heat, the hotter the CPU, the cooler theother side because water runs faster, cools the cell better, cells produces more energy so water runs faster ;) but -might- (considering all "overhead" heat produced and energy used by the devices) provide some savings.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  63. The hunt is on... by immel · · Score: 1

    "The system is powered by a small, solid-state pump that uses a unique "electrokinetic" process. With no moving mechanical parts, the pump electrically generates osmotic pressure in an electrolyte" The Hunt for Red October is on! Now it uses a caterpillar drive to cool its computers, too. Prepare to be Ownzed in HarpoonIII, Connery!

    --

    10 Bits= $.25
    100 Bits= $.50
    110 Bits= $.75
    1000 Bits= 1 byte
    1. Re:The hunt is on... by aXis100 · · Score: 1

      Problem is, your computer will sound like whales humping.

  64. I smell a LAWSUIT! by csoto · · Score: 0

    IBM might sue over the use of the term "Micro-Channel." Then again, they might just want to forget that whole thing ;)

    --
    There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
  65. A few pictures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This site has a few pictures which illustrate this new cooling technology.

  66. kool aid drinking apple zealots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You got a problem with kool-aid? It could be used to cool your computer someday.

    1. Re:kool aid drinking apple zealots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not me, I've got a G5 and it never gets hot. Never ever ever. No Kool Aid necessary.

  67. So why not just immerse the mobo in water? by Esion+Modnar · · Score: 1
    I'm serious. I've heard that pure distilled water is not conductive at all. Some big transformers have used this cooling method.

    Of course, you get any impurities in there and PFFFFT!

    --

    They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
    1. Re:So why not just immerse the mobo in water? by Junta · · Score: 1

      Of course, the distilled water *really* wants to be impure, and will therefore corrode the sensitive parts resulting in the combination of the consequences of enveloping things in a conductive material and excessive corrosion on top of that.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    2. Re:So why not just immerse the mobo in water? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Water may not be so good, but 3M makes a whole range of non-conductive liquid coolants for just this sort of application. They aren't cheap, but in a sealed system you wouldn't need to top it up, and widespread use would bring the costs down.

      Also, just bathing the CPU wouldn't work that well, because you'd need movement of the liquid to transport the heat away. Some sort of pump would be necessary.

      - PW

  68. Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by c13v3rm0nk3y · · Score: 1
    this system can handle 1000 watts (yes, a kilowatt) per square centimeter.

    I'm pretty sure a kilowatt is actually 1,024 watts.

    Though, I suppose that's depending on who is measuring it. Not to mention that some electrical systems cannot handle larger wattages, or do so through Logical Wattage Access (LWA).

    ;)

    --
    -- clvrmnky
    1. Re:Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kilo=1000. No question about that!

      Only, in the computer industry, 1024 is used to reflect the size of a bit.

    2. Re:Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by boarder · · Score: 1

      nice try

      kilo means 1000
      period

      only in the computer world does it mean anything else.

      This site defines what computer folks should be using: the kibi

      summary: kilo=1000=10^3
      kibi=1024=2^10

      --
      IANAL, but I play one on /.
    3. Re:Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by TheOtherShoe · · Score: 1

      No, a kilowatt actually is 1000 watts. The 1,024 thing really only applies to bytes.

    4. Re:Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by c13v3rm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      <sarcasm>No kidding. Really?</sarcasm>

      look, no offence, but I'm pretty sure it was clear in my original posting that I was making a funny.

      --
      -- clvrmnky
    5. Re:Is that a real or estimated kilowatt? by c13v3rm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      Nice try yourself.

      This site explains how one should have read my original posting.

      Sheesh.

      --
      -- clvrmnky
  69. Hey look! by sdack · · Score: 1

    Hey look, I use my computer now for everything, I don't even need light bulps or a heating!

  70. Re:Utter rubbish! (not so) by adrianbaugh · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not so, you could link the nanotubes to larger "arterial" and "venal" tubes to move the heat off-chip totally, then have another heat exchanger where the primary cooling circuit is cooled by a second water circuit, which because there's more room off-chip could be a flow of tap water in and water passed to a drain on the way out. This should prove pretty effective.

    --
    "'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
    - JRR Tolkien.
  71. But what's the flow rate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Divide the volumetric flow rate by the cross section of the tubes. An excessive rate might exceed the capacity of the 'pump' or erode the tube sidewalls. I didn't RTFM, so I don't know.

  72. Liquid cooling? by Adumbratus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Someone will have to doublecheck this for me, but I seem to recall distilled water as being very likely to damage any system due to simple chemistry. Last I recall from high school chem was that impurity concentrations will travel from highest to lowest, and that if the metal involved has enough of a charge to it, it'll just leach out into the water resulting in local pitting of the metal (and eventual failure of the surrounding structure).

    Other then that, isn't it more of a matter of finding the right liquid vis-a-vis thermal density vs. size of liquid molecule? I bring up the latter as I recall reading that the size of the molecule vs. the diameter of the tube (hydrostatical effect?)

    Pity about the fishtank cooled processor. It'd keep the tropical fish nice and toasty. In a pinch you could always short out the board and have dinner available pretty quickly I'd figure (anyone have any ideas on how fast it'd fry fish?)

  73. Re:GrammarFairy sez: Your you're is showing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't believe in the Grammar Fairy.

  74. Imagine? by Slicebo · · Score: 1

    Can you imagine what you'd get with a Beowulf cluster of these?

    A drinking fountain!

  75. Re:Power from waste heat by Benm78 · · Score: 1
    The main problem in all of this is keeping the 'cold' side cold. You would need a very elborate cooling system to provide a cool 'sink' at room temperature.

    It might seem trivial to keep a heatsink well below cpu temperature, but it definitely is not. With coolant exiting the CPU and 70C, and a heatsink at 45C, the efficiency of this energy-regenaration process would be small. (well under 10%). In this very same example, the heatsink would have to be twice as large compared to a heatsink at 70C, in an ambient temperature of 20C.

    Although the concept is basically valid here, it would be very impractical to implement. The space used up by the oversize cooling system could be replaced with more batteries, providing a longer battery life at similar size.

  76. Re:Power from waste heat by jafuser · · Score: 1

    I've always wondered how these work to generate electricity from heat flow...

    I assume a tiny amount of flowing heat is absorbed and converted into electricity? If not, then where does the energy come from?

    What happens when you sandwich these cells? Wouldn't you get electricity from each cell, until the heat is completely absorbed?

    And if that is the case, then wouldn't a sufficently well designed array of these allow you to reabsorb nearly all waste heat and recycle it back into electricity to be re-used in a closed system? Assuming a closed system completely surrounded by these cells and stacked thick enough to absorb nearly all heat?

    Since this is probably impossible, where is the error?

    --
    Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
  77. Mixing Water and Electricity by trolman · · Score: 1
    On the desktop, liquid cooling is far from new, and has been used in mainframes and supercomputers for decades. Off-the-shelf cooling systems for overclocked PCs can be bought from dozens of hobbyist suppliers.

    Ahem, most of the modern big iron and data centers in general have gone to air cooling so this is a bad example. In fact the problems with maintaining the chilled water system and the cost were the big factors in going back to air cooling but this is also an issue of reliability. Chilled water had a high of a failure rate.

    I for one think if it is internal to the box okay but trying going outside the box with water based heat rejection will be a disaster.

  78. So, dare I ask, what's new about this? by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 1

    Heatpipes have been around and used in laptops and GPU's for a while.

    Yeah, the heat dispersal is extrodinary. But, I am certain when the end-user product arrives it won't be flawless. Perhaps not as functional.

    Heatpipes for every day of the week:
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=utf-8 &oe=utf -8&q=heat+pipe+cpu

  79. You know what you could cool with that? by TheOtherShoe · · Score: 1

    This is not very relevant, but I can't resist the comparison. I work at a nuclear reactor, a small one that generates 250 kW at full power and is about the size of a washing machine. Now, it has way more than 250 square cm of surface area, so at 1 kw of heat dissipation per square cm this stuff could easily keep it cool. Of course we already have a better cooling system involving a 25 ft deep pool of water, but it makes an interesting comparison when you think about what kind of heat a CPU is actually generating.

    1. Re:You know what you could cool with that? by Cackmobile · · Score: 1

      Do you work in sector 7-G?

      --
      -- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
  80. Stanford is such an awesome university! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Stanford is such an awesome university! Look at where all of these Cooligy guys got their undergraduate degrees:

    Founders:
    Ken Goodson - BS in Mech Eng from MIT
    Tom Kenny - BS in Physics from University of Minnestoa
    Juan Satiago - BS Mech Eng from University of Florida

    Management:
    Dave Corbin (President) - BS EE from University of Kansas
    Dan Lenehan (VP Bus Dev) - BS EE from New Jersey Institute of Technology
    Mark Much (VP Engineering)- BS Chem Engr. University of Colorado
    Andy Keane - BS Physics Rensselaer Polytechnic

    Board of Directors:
    Dave Corbin (see above)
    Todd Brooks - BS Chem Engineering from Texas A&M
    Rob Chaplinsky - BS University of Waterloo
    Carl Everett - BA Business New Mexico State University
    Len Rand - BS in Building Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic
    Dr. Albert Yu - BS EE CalTech

    Stanford is really an awesome school, check out this review

  81. Re:GrammarFairy sez: Your its is showing... by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    Gramar Fairy,

    You said, " The easiest way to remember it until its habit is to substitute the full phrase in your (not you're!) sentence, and see if it works:"

    In that sentence, you mixed up the common homonyms (male labia) "it's" and "its".

    The word "it's" is a contraction of "it is". the term "its" is a the possesive form of "it", which is wrong unless you meant to imply that one must train the word to know "its" place in the sentence; in that case you would be correct but un drugs or maybe snorting too much fairy dust and ranting about ficticious male genetalia (homo = man, nym from nympha = labia minor.)

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  82. powerbook g5? by redJag · · Score: 1

    powerbook g5 possibility? mwhahaha! everything is falling into place as planned..

  83. cool chips... by dilvie · · Score: 1

    Anybody with a clue want to compare and contrast this with the coolchips.com technology?

  84. Re:Power from waste heat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "That's why power plants use steam or gasses heated to hundreds or thousands of degrees to run their turbines. " Isn't the steam just there to spin the turbine? You know, steam forced out by high pressure?

  85. Re:Power from waste heat by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1
    "That's why power plants use steam or gasses heated to hundreds or thousands of degrees to run their turbines. " Isn't the steam just there to spin the turbine? You know, steam forced out by high pressure?

    Yes, and the high pressure is caused by the large difference in temperature between the incoming steam and the condenser at the outlet. No big temperature delta -> little pressure -> not much work.

  86. Nasa calls them rocket motors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rocket motors dont have moving parts.
    Other than the ability to direct 2.5 million horsepower worth of thrust.
    Not a motor indeed.

  87. Re:Power from waste heat by ccmunkey · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm crazy or have the physics understanding of a dead monkey, but doesn't thermal energy radiate or is that merely a function of heat transferance via matter? Also I think you would lose some energy due to electrical resistance assuming you weren't using perfectly efficient superconducters. ----- On a long enough timeline, everybody dies. -Tyler Durden

  88. Get a passive heatsink.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guess what? All of a sudden your harddrive and your PSU sound like turbines while trying to get shut eye. The battle never ends.

  89. Re:Power from waste heat by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    No! It's heat TRANSFER that gives the electricity. So if you put the cell on top of dry ice block and put a pot of boiling water on top of it, you have 100C on one side and some -30 on the other, and the cell provides some electricity because some heat flows from the pot to the block, water cools, ice evaporates. If you stack two of these, you get some 30C between them. Combined they will provide stronger current, but because the temperature difference is lower, the voltage will be lower. (or something like this). The error is that the heat is not absorbed/cumulated in the cell, but dissipated on the other side. It's like potential energy of a charged particle between two objects charged with opposite loads versus energy of the same particle between one charged object and infinity.

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    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  90. Re:Utter rubbish! (err yes it is) by sigmaIII · · Score: 1

    The capacity to move the heat off the chip will be dependant on an external system. That will be (as it is now) the bottle neck. It wont actually matter how fast the nano tubes can move the heat around. As for a flow of tap water, not only is the environmentally untenable, tap water contains all kinds of impurities (including biological). There is a very good reason for water-cooling rigs to use a combination of deionised water and various chemicals to prevent corrosion & growths.

  91. Engines are a subclass of motors (OT) by oneiros27 · · Score: 1
    Motors impart motion.

    Engines impart motion by the conversion of chemical energy. (ie, fuel).

    For instance, although most of us refer to the thing inside our car as an 'engine' (internal combustion engine, to be more precise), if you watch NASCAR, they commonly refer to them as a 'motor'.

    Your argument is basically
    That's not a plant, that's a tree!
    or, for those Simpson fans:
    That's not a sailboat, that's a schooner!
    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  92. Re:GrammarFairy sez: Your its is showing... by GrammarFairy · · Score: 0

    Ah, somone catches the GrammarFairy at its own game! It looks like the dust works, good job! Still, I'm not sure what source you're finding your definition for homonym. Here's some help from Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=homonym&r =67 -GrammarFairy

  93. Re:Utter rubbish! (oh no it isn't) by adrianbaugh · · Score: 1

    You miss the point. While you definitely need a very pure coolant for flowing through the on-chip nanotubes there's no reason why that circuit can't exchange heat with a secondary (but entirely separate) circuit. If you think it's environmentally untenable to have a continuous flow of water just have the secondary circuit running from a millpond or tank in the garden (with a decent filter); that wouldn't be too expensive and a pond could provide a sufficient heat sink for any purpose, dependent on the size of the pond. Obviously we're not talking about something you'd want to do when overclocking your P4, but for insane chips where you're trying to dissipate a kilowatt per cm^2 this seems a perfectly valid method. It's very like the (real, in-use, current, present day) two-stage method used to cool nuclear reactors, go read up about it some time.

    --
    "'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
    - JRR Tolkien.
  94. Re:Utter rubbish! (oh yes it really really is) by sigmaIII · · Score: 1

    No your the one who is missing the point! It doesn't matter how fantastic the nano pies are at moving heat, it still has to be disapated somewhere.

    Once you start using a conventional heat exchanger, be it heatsink & fan or elaborate water cooling your dependant on that system to remove the heat. Its that system that will make the biggest difference to the die tempreture, NOT any fancy on die nono tube heat spreading technology.

  95. Re:Utter rubbish! (pantomine 'oh no it isn't'...) by adrianbaugh · · Score: 1

    Well naturally. But if you want a single-stage network of coolant-filled nanotubes with an external to-air heat exchanger, and want the whole thing to be big enough to remove a kilowatt (assuming 1kWcm^-2 and a die of 1cm^2), that's going to get very expensive. Air is a pretty poor sink. However, you could have a much smaller primary nanotube system exchanging heat to water at external ambient temperature and it would be much cheaper. The heat that water then acquires can be dumped to the atmosphere later, once it's been drained to a large pond or the drain. I think what you're saying is that said nanotubes aren't some kind of magic solution that can remove unlimited amounts of heat: fair enough, I'd agree with that. What I'm saying (perhaps what I've been thinking but not actually writing down) is that these could provide a mechanism for getting coolant to all parts of the chip, possibly even inside it with future lithographic techniques, and therefore potentially doing a better job than a conventional heatsink which will be some distance from the lower surface of the chip -- but that if you're removing as much heat as the article suggests you're going to want a two-stage circuit to reduce the cost of all those nanotubes (I don't imagine they will come cheap).

    --
    "'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
    - JRR Tolkien.