IBM cools stacked silicon chips with water
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted Jun 5th 2008 6:29PM
posted Jun 5th 2008 6:29PM
[Via TG Daily]
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Didn't someone appear on The Screensavers oh so long ago showing off similar tech?
"cooled with water"
First thought:
As opposed to...... beer? Whipped cream? Vinegar?
As opposed to Soylent Green.
Which wouldn't work nearly as well as water.
As opposed to air, immersion and cascading.
Anyway, I'd say that the water can be used to heat pools. If it was a supercomputer.
water has a high or low specific heat. I forgot which it was, but it is whatever is resistant.
In other words, it's "heat inertia" is high.
It has a very high specific heat. Which as far as cooling goes, is a good thing.
Water has a Specific Heat Capacity of 4.2.
Atleast I'm learning something at University.
Guys! That was humor! Read the headline out loud with emphasis on the last word.
I know that water's specific heat is 4.184; the same number as how many joules are in a calorie. I know Q = sm deltaT.
I'm kidding. Read it out loud.
thats hot... or cool?
sigh, im bored.
That is sooo Cyberdyne!!!
When I saw this picture, I immediately thought it was a building and I quickly thought, "That looks stupid!" THEN I read the title.
Same here. Also thought it was a building. Felt sorry for those who has an office on the side windows. I was like, poor people, what a crappy view they have. Then I came to my senses and read.
Does IBM still exist?
Must use bottled water, as city waters is too polluted.
Bottled water IS city water. Check your facts. What they will really be using is deionized water.
@BigD145: but spring water isn't, unless the company is screwing over their customers.
@Richard: Which they do quite often. At least one corporation has been nailed on claiming tap water was 'spring' water.
Wow.... 1 step forward 2 steps back...... VAX's Alpha's and some other bigger systems used to use the exact same technology basically to cool there systems....
Guess DEC had it right the first time.... Oh yeah, they had VMS... ;-)
There's a difference between running water through a heat sink and water through the chip. The fun thing about Alphas was that the heat spreader sitting on the chips had bolts formed in the metal which allowed the sinks to be "screwed" to the chip offering a more secure connection and surface area.
in other words ibm can't make faster chips so apple dumps them for intel, now they can only overclock/stack/watercool the current ones
Yup, because all processor tech goes to the casual consumer market so that you can playback all those Flash YouTube videos.
IBM has Power 6 chips running over 4.5Ghz in their server clusters so speed wasn't the issue. I think Apple wanted to switch to standard PC hardware so they could offer bootcamp as a switch over crutch and to fatten up the profit margin per box by using cheaper hardware.
Take a look at the number of IBM systems at the top of the supercomputer list and you'll see that IBM can make extremely high-performance hardware. However, at the time of the Apple switch, IBM's technology was targetted at performance and not at low power. Apple wanted changes for reduced power for laptops and they weren't a large enough customer compared with other IBM business to garner sufficient response. Frustrated, they went another route. On the other hand, IBM did cater to the gaming market, which is huge, which is why they were able to win every gaming console socket (Wii, XBox 360 and PS3 all use IBM-designed processors). Further, IBM's RF/wireless technology is the fastest silicon available. They were the first to bring SiGe technology to market and you'll find their parts (power amps, radio front ends, etc.) in many cell phone, GPS and Wi-Fi systems (VERY many, actually, although most wear the label of the fabless chip house that buys the fab production run from IBM).
It seems to me that most computers/electronics exist in 2D. This picture only reinforces what I have always believed to be true. The next phase in computers/electronics will be 3D.
I'm surprised I read through all the comments and no one has said "does it play doom" yet.
Anyways will I be getting this in my my home pc??? no?! then who cares.
does it play doom?
In other words. When your chip gets over 96°C it will burst...
"i'll just yank that Core Voltage a tiny bi".... PLOPP.... "...oh..."
Maybe they can include a steam powered generator to reduce the energy usage?
But.. can it run Crysis?