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

Electrolysis

[mrbluze]

To cool the stack at a rate of 180 watts per layer, water flows down 50-micron channels between the stacked chips. I wonder what reactivity of water with the surrounding surfaces will do to the life of the chip. AFAIK pretty much anything that uses water has an inherent limitation to its life, owing to the presence of superoxide radicals and free hydrogen ions.

3D CPU structure

[Lord Lode]

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...