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Researchers Create 3-Dimensional Chips

Posted by timothy on from the hypercubic dept.

Spy der Mann writes "Professor James Lu and other researchers of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, managed to create three-dimensional chips (coral cache) to optimize the design of future processors and prevent overheating. "Make the interconnect wire shorter, and you cut the delay time," says Lu. "A simple way to make them shorter is to stack the transistors.""

7 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Heat by skraps · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hopefully there will be a parallel advance in cooling technology.

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  2. Huh... by Peale · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought they'd been doing this all along.

    Guess I was just ahead of my time...in my head.

  3. How does that prevent overheating? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Essentially, they say this packs it denser. And a cube vs a flat processor = less surface/transistor. I see only factors which makes this *harder* to cool. Maybe someone can explain...

    Kjella

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  4. Simple? by Detritus · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "A simple way to make them shorter is to stack the transistors."

    There must be a new meaning of the word "simple" that I'm not familiar with.

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  5. Re:shorter wires = less resistance by jumpingfred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most of the heat is disapated accross the transisors. Shorter wires may reduce the capacitance which would lower the amount of charge moving which would lower power.

  6. Re:shorter wires = less resistance by geekee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "There is, sort of. If the wires are shorter, they have less resistance end-to-end assuming they have the same thickness, are made from the same material, etc etc. Less resistance means less heat (and maybe core voltage could be lowered slightly too, since there would be less of a voltage drop). However, I honestly don't know how much heat comes from the actual junctions versus circuit pathways."

    I don't think people are worried about the heat dissipated in the actual wire. High resistance wires require you to use additional buffers to generate signals with acceptable rise/fall times due to rc charging effects. This costs more power.

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  7. Re:Hey... by ezberry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Technically you are congratulating him for doing what he is paid to do - no more. I mean, it's an interesting story, but I don't know if he deserves congratulations because he didn't chose to not green-light it.
    Maybe the parent was being facetious, but I can't tell.