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.

Comments

When will water cooling be feasible for ME?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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)?

Re:When will water cooling be feasible for ME?

[colmore]

How is this insightful? Water cooling may never be feasable for you. Unless you count the datacenters that you use for networked applications (like... readings slashdot) or the large numerical processors that enable the science and engineering behind the crap you use every day.

Water cooling wasn't invented by overclockers. Cray used it in many of their production systems in the 70s and 80s and its use with CPUs goes further back than that.

The stack of chips is to increase the connectivity between the multiple cores and memory / bus. Many simulation applications don't break down into individually computable problems and the system has to be analyzed as a dynamic whole. Data throughput is essential for this sort of thing.

I am getting increasingly irked by the whole "but what about us NORMAL folks?" bit. Look around. Our society and just about every aspect of it is without any meaningful majority. If something affects a lot of people, even if you aren't one of them, it's important.

IBM have done this before

[mad zambian]

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.

Re:This will never work

[iamdrscience]

It makes sense, you see, although modding a funny post as "funny" may be more accurate, modding a funny post as "insightful" instead is definitely more funny, so it's a much more appropriate moderation. You see, the moderator is making a joke about the joke. I believe this is called "metamoderation" -- if you have an account you may have noticed Slashdot encouraging you to metamoderate from time to time.

Re:Electrolysis

[rahunzi]

What about FREEEZING???? you limit chip to an environment where water is liquid - also size of molecules is finite and chips sizes decrease, water will not... I guess a PLATE or MANIFOLD would work and simplify connectivity... this is also SCALABLE into some supercooling/conductivity

Re:Alcohol cooling is a bad idea.

[hairyfeet]

What i don't get is why not use helium since it can cool to such low temperatures and knowing these chips are going to get super hot. It seems to me you would want to drop the temps more than water cooling would to keep performance high. And it isn't like money is an object for these systems,after all we are talking "big iron" after all. But that is my 02c,YMMV