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.