IBM Developing Water-Cooled Chips

IBM's 3D chipstacks present a world of promise in enhancing chip performance. But the 3D chipstacks also produce heat at about one kilowatt per cubic centimeter, enough to melt an uncooled chip in a hundredth of a second, says this Economist.com article.

That's why IBM teamed with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin to develop prototype water-cooled chips that pipe water between the chip layers to offset heat the chip generates. According to Dataweek, researchers were able to embed the cooling system into channels as small as 50 microns--about the size of a human hair.

Discover Magazine reports that IBM hopes to have the technology ready commercially in five years. If successful, the water-cooled 3D chipstacks could play a major role in reducing the heat problem facing next-generation computers.