Next Generation CPU Refrigerators

Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at Purdue University are developing a miniature refrigeration system, small enough to fit inside laptop computers. According to the researchers, the implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips, therefore boosting performance while simultaneously shrinking the size of computers."

Comments

Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips.

Of course, the next step will be to dramatically increase the heat output of high-end CPUs. Aren't arms races fun?

Re:Excellent

[plover]

I thought the next step would be to dramatically decrease the size of beer cans to fit in these miniature refrigerators.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Or dramatically increase the size of beer cans to fit these inside. I'm not interested in "Fun Size" beers.

(Fun for who? Beer companies?)

Re:Excellent

[The Dancing Panda]

Why would you EVER want to DECREASE the size of a beer can?!?!

Blasphemer...

Re:Excellent

[somersault]

I don't think multi-core is going to cut it, it seems to me each processor needs it's own mememory and bandwidth to do massive calculations, and then sends the results of this information to where it is needed.

While multi-core isn't amazingly effective for doing 'massive calculations' of the variety that scientists usually do (compared to a supercomputer with thousands of nodes anyway), it is great for general purpose computing. It definitely helps for everyday use - whenever I use a single core computer (even with a high clockspeed), I notice the difference in responsiveness, especially when booting into Windows and all the system tray apps are loading, or running lots of applications at the same time. You have to remember that even if you're just running a single application on your dekstop, there are plenty of background processes too.

Not that I want to dissuade you from researching into more efficient processor methodologies, even if it's only for specific tasks - go ahead :) But when you get down to it, most tasks your average computer user does during the day are neither suitable for parallelisation, nor are they considered highly specialised. I'm just thinking of web browsing, chatting, checking email. Modern games do involve lots of operations that 20 years ago would be considered 'specialised', like 3D sound, graphics and physics processing, but we already have specialised processors for all of these things.

I'm really wondering if anyone has done any research into the geometry of information processing functions, of what can be specifically offloaded and what should not

I don't think you're giving the guys at places like Intel and AMD much credit.. if they hadn't thought about stuff like that then where did the idea for 'hyperthreading' and different CPU 'pipelines' come from? To me it seems that the only things that have changed in the last couple of decades is that we've gone from having computers that were mainly designed for integer arithmetic as far as hardware was concerned, to having computers with addons for floating point calculation, and now we have units capable of massively parallel floating point calculations and amazing amounts of memory bandwidth (graphics cards and supercomputers), and now we are getting APIs like CUDA to make use of graphics cards to do more supercomputer like things with our graphics cards. I'm not a CPU design engineer though, so the true progression is probably a bit more complex ;)

How much juice?

[fyoder]

And how much electricity will this consume? It may not be that appealing to laptop users if it eats significantly into their battery life. And for servers many colo companies are finding themselves less constrained by space than by available electricity.

Re:How much juice?

[megaditto]

Could be pretty damn efficient if it's a heat pump.

A good AC unit usually consumes less than 10 times the energy it moves (a 1 kW window unit rated for 40,000 BTUs for example), but that depends how much colder the inside needs to be compared to the outside air.

In case of CPU coolers (cooling things hotter than ambient air), one could even GENERATE electricity if the size and cost of the "cooler" is not a concern (A thick diamond heatpipe to conduct heat away to distant thermocouples is how I would do it).

Revolutionary

[Rui del-Negro]

the implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips, therefore boosting performance

Really? So my CPU will perform faster if I put it in a refigerator?

Condensation?

[SoapBox17]

Don't air conditioning units tend to produce a bit of water condensation during cooling? I guess we'll have to start emptying the water out of our PCs....

Re:Condensation?

[Smidge204]

Only because they cool below the dew point - which, in turn, is dependent on the humidity levels.

People who build active cooling into their computers (for overclocking) typically insulate the chip(s) and cooling block to keep air-exposed surfaces at or above ambient temperatures for just that reason.

Also, even if it does produce condensation I'd say there's little reason to worry... just recycle the condensate to provide evaporative cooling on the (much hotter) heat sink side of the system.
=Smidge=

Hype

[MojoRilla]

The article says:

The researchers developed an analytical model for designing tiny compressors that pump refrigerants using penny-sized diaphragms. This model has been validated with experimental data.

Translation:
This is completely impractical hype so far. We are looking for grant and startup money.

Re:Side Question???

[jaxtherat]

You mean mineral oil immersion?

linkage: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/12/puget-custom-computers-mineral-oil-cooled-pc/

Re:Hotter?

[Bloodoflethe]

Yeah I don't get this, the heat need to leave the laptop somehow, and since the refrigerator will have to be within the laptop the heat remains inside it

The refrigerator's exterior heat exchanging pipes don't have to be inside the refrigerator itself. They didn't give any technical specs, so what are you worried about? Surely if they are working on this project, they'll have thought or experienced this problem if they were putting all items in the same location.

Also, consider that, to a point, the ambient heat inside a laptop can be higher, as long as the PUs are kept cool. Of course if this were the only consideration, eventually the ambient heat would screw all the components except for the processors, but, as I said, they've considered this already. I'm sure of it.

Re:Side Question???

[SQL Error]

I think he's probably thinking of Fluorinert, which was used to cool the Cray 2.

Dump it near the Wifi module

[EmbeddedJanitor]

And make your own hotspot.

Re:Nitrogen costs less than beer

[billcopc]

You're right, liquid nitrogen does not cost anywhere near $300/gallon, but the GP wasn't talking about nitrogen, they were talking about 3M Fluorinert, which does indeed cost an arm and a leg.

The problem with these fluids is they can't keep up with today's processors. Immersing a PC in a vat of mineral oil won't magically cool the damned thing. You still need to extract the heat from that big pool of sludge; natural convection just doesn't cut it anymore. In fact, the fluid acts kind of like an insulator, because it moves so slowly that heat builds up right on your processor. You'd need propellers to move the flooz around, probably pump it through some sort of radiator.

On the plus side, I could use my overclocked PCs to cook me some french fries for my poutine :)

Re:Hotter?

[KGIII]

they've considered this already. I'm sure of it.

More famous last words have ne'er been spoken.