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IBM Water-Cools 3D Multi-Core Chip Stacks
An anonymous reader writes "Water cooling will enable multi-core processors to be stacked into 3D cubes, according to IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory which is demonstrating three-dimensional chip stacks. By stacking memory chips between processor cores IBM plans to multiply interconnections by 100 times while reducing their feature size tenfold. To cool the stack at a rate of 180 watts per layer, water flows down 50-micron channels between the stacked chips. Earlier this year, the same group described a copper-plate water cooling method for IBM's Hydro-Cluster supercomputer. The Zurich team predicts high-end IBM multicore computers will migrate from the copper-plate water-cooling-method to the 3-D chip-stack in five to 10 years." Reader Lilith's Heart-shape adds a link to the BBC's article on these internally-cooled chips.
beer cooling
But they're really gonna rev up performance once they move to 4-cornered time cubes.
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You don't want to cool with alcohol. The boiling point of most alcohols is between 60 and 80 degrees Celsius, as opposed to water's boiling point of 100 degrees Celsius.
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can it run Vista??
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This reminds me of the water cooled computer from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ . It seems like a pretty cool idea, I don't know why it hasn't been used before.
Water cooling is great for the bleeding edge enthusiast, but it's hardly an option for the workaday computer users. Laptops certainly could stand to use some better heat dissipation, and if water cooling through 50nm tubes is possible here, how long until it is both cost effective and size-effective for people who aren't interested in hardware for its own sake to see this type of thing offered to us, the average computer user?
And is stacking the chips better than laying them flat and in a strip (like Pentium M)?
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How can IBM be this stupid? You can't cool a stack of chips with water, they'll just get soggy. I know it's hard to be patient, but if your chips are too hot to eat, you're better off just waiting for them to cool down.
Sounds like too much, with typical numbers around 60 watts per processor this days.
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I always liked the idea of a 3D CPU with all the cores and memory interweaved through each other in a way to have the optimal short path for its purposes. A LOT of memory could be there right next to the CPU. It would be fast even without clocking it very high, so not even have to consume that much watts per layer. It's a crazy amount of watts per layer mentioned in the article btw...
Right now, if the pump is off, or if the flow isn't flowing, the processor is none the wiser and happily starts up. I've seen my Core2Duo hit 100C when my pump died, my only warning was when the comp just shut off when it hit the temp cap. There needs to be some sort of control system that is actually linked in to the processor, so that it won't start if the flow of water through the block (or now the CPU itself) is below a certain rate. Most people who do use watercooling, however, know what they are doing and this usually isn't an issue, it would just be nice to know the server rack won't melt itself when someone blows the pump breaker.
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Actually boiling removes much more heat than conduction. This is the principle used in heat pipes, where you want a low boiling temperature, because that will be the temperature in the hot side.
We just finished removing all the water cooling tubing which the old mainframes used.... But hey, don't tell anyone that watercooling big computers isn't a new idea :-).
When it's 1024 processors in a water-cooled solid block of silicon.
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If the water gets 100C. it will boil and leave the processor in an isolating bubble.
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I can see it now, "IBM struck with class-action lawsuit after several incidents of computers being left out in the cold of winter cause the processors to explode due to the natural properties of water expanding into ice. Other incidents with water contamination in liquid nitrogen-cooled 3-D processors have resulted in a similar lawsuit."
I am not an engineer, but I've been kicking this concept around in my head for a while, short paths FTW. I always thought of thermoelectric cooling solutions, water-through-the-chip... wow
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Funny, I thought that this thing has already existed for a while at IBM? They called it Multi-Chip Module-Vertical (MCM-V) at that time. But maybe just the cooling had to be redone for those power-hungry modern cores.
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IBM and water cooling of chips is not really new. I remember reading of some research they did back in the 80's when they etched micro channels on the back of processor chips, and forced water through them. IIRC, they reckoned they could eventually dissipate almost 1KW per square centimeter.
You want to drive bipolar chips fast, you apply more power. And end up with a piece of silicon dissipating way more heat per unit area than an electric fire. Mind you, so do Athlons.
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If you like to read more information on multicore processors, go to http://www.multicoreinfo.com/ .
So we start stacking cpu's to get more into one area? so once we can cool it will it become a normal home user item? If so surely to make the distance between the cpu and installable memory as small as possible and we will dispose of the mother boards and have mother cubes that the cpu's slot into!
Then mabe because a cube has too many different distances between cores and the memory (like the old long slot Pentiums) how long will we take to decide to have circular cpu's that fit into ORB motherboards! then our pc's will just become a ball of electronics! how the hell do you mount that in a case!
I understand that they will weave memory into the cpu but surely this wont be enought for the hardcore users.
mabe i'm thinking too much... no more coffee.
Great minds think alike.
3-D chip stacks are grossly superior to 2-D chip stacks.
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sounds like a great place for growing algae!!
(oh, they love that warm water!)
plumbing always leaks eventually - what a mess - my system melted down, and there's coolant all over the cpu -- blech.
Does anyone remember the good old days when Metal Gate CMOS represented a power efficient process? We have went from CMOS devices consuming milliwatts and microwatts to processors with a 125W+ Total Power Dissipation. This announcement is talking about 180 Watts per layer!
How long will it be before my computer heats my house while I browse the internet? When does the first combined datacenter and heating cogeneration system get installed?
BTW, I was thinking of 16 exabytes of RAM for each processor core, on the same chip, so the Bus only feeds the peripherals.
Like I said, IANAE.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Isn't this just miniaturizing what Cray used to do? They had processor/system boards in fluorinert, IBM has processor cores in water.
"When it's 1024 processors in a water-cooled solid block of silicon"
Somewhere there's a geek who has already accomplished this goal. He's using it to run Crysis at 4800x3600 with full detail, at 1600 frames per second, and no matter who he shows it off to, he still can't get laid.
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Unless the water is very, very pure, there will be effects of moving water. In all systems that use moving water, some amount of material is removed by impurities over time. For most systems, the amount of damage is microscopic so it doesn't matter as much. Still, periodic maintenance and replacement of parts is enough to combat this. But at the scale of these chips (microns), any damage may be serious.
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Deionized water is available, cheap and not a problem if there's a spill. No messing with hazardous materials or stringent environmental restrictions. That makes good sense.
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Would this 3-D microchip look anything like the one taken out of a T800?
If the chips are heating the water, shouldn't it flow up?
Why use water? That's harder and slower to move when it gets hot. Here's my idea. Stack boards of processors and then leave two opposite sides of the rack open and put one of those massive movie hurricane wind fans on one side and turn it on. I mean sure it draws some serious power but with a constant 80 MPH wind, your chips will stay damn cool! Plus, no need to worry about dust :D
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The fact that a first product release is 5 years away, probably means:
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Here's the chip http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/hellraiser_puzzle_box_L.jpg
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Gee I still remember all of those water cooled main frames I used to worked with and then later those water cooled main frames went away and we had air cool main frames. Now IBM came full circle and introduced water cooling again, in a much smaller scale now. I think water or other high specific heat capacity liquid will help cool the CPU chip so it doesn't destroy itself. In short you want to take the heat generated by the CPU and dissipate it somewhere else and do that cycle again. The physics hasn't changed but how one does it has.
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Interesting tech, but they need to be switching to photons instead of electrons, then no need for heat dissipation as much. This ultrahot delicate thing...it's just wrong. They could make it work, but it is rube goldberg old tech instead of clean slate new tech.
we're one step closer to the cubed processors used in the Terminator series of robots...
Two differences with heat pipe :
- For phase change to be efficient, you need a liquid with a high latent heat (once you reach the boiling point temperature you still need to put a lot of energy inside the liquid to help transform it from liquid to gaz).
Alcohol's is bad. Water's is better.
- Heat pipe function at a very low pressure, and the gaz flows freely in those circumstance.
Meanwhile, with water-cooling if some small bubble forms in the 50 micrometer tubes, they are going to increase the resistance and slow down the flow inside the given channel.
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Looks like the chip that could render heaters obsolete, or at least in 3D.
Ross Youngblood