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IBM Water-Cools 3D Multi-Core Chip Stacks

Posted by timothy on from the 3d-cubes-are-the-best-kind-of-cubes dept.

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.

7 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. 3D cubes are nice, I guess by krog · · Score: 4, Funny

    But they're really gonna rev up performance once they move to 4-cornered time cubes.

    --
    Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
  2. But the question is.... by CowboyNealOption · · Score: 5, Funny

    can it run Vista??

  3. When will water cooling be feasible for ME? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)?

  4. Electrolysis by mrbluze · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    --
    Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
  5. This will never work by iamdrscience · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  6. Basic Physics of Thermoconduction by mrbluze · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought you would want something with a low boiling point so you can move the heat as far away from the source as possible? Something with a high specific heat is what's needed, which is why water is good. You can have any boiling point you like, depending on what pressure you apply to the liquid (boiling point is when vapour pressure = atmospheric pressure). If you are going to compress and decompress something to drive heat away, then use a gas.
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    Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
  7. Re:Alcohol cooling is a bad idea. by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only if you are making a wet/dry system, such as one that relies on phase change. If that's the case, it's refrigerant you want, and not alcohol (there is no real benefit to the vaporization unless the pressure swing is high). If you are doing closed loop all liquid, you want something that stays a liquid since vapor can't carry as much energy as liquid can given the same space. See automotive liquid cooling and refrigeration phase-change cooling for plenty of high-efficiency examples, none of which use alcohol or any similar substance.