IBM cools stacked silicon chips with water

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/305630406/

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Stacking silicon into what are called 3D chips is something IBM does as good as, if not better than, any other screener. Problem is, all those stacked circuits create a an exponential amount of heat, and traditional cooling methods don't scale. So what does IBM do? It comes up with integrated water channels about the size of a human hair that it's calling "interlayer cooling." According to IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory, this is the first tech of its kind. The 50 micron channels between individual chip layers are performing at 180 watt/cm² per layer for a stack with a typical footprint of 4 cm². In other words, it works.

[Via TG Daily]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments