IBM Cools 3-D Chips with H2O

IBM Researchers, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, demonstrated a prototype that integrates the cooling system into the 3-D chips by piping water directly between each layer in the stack.

These so-called 3-D chip stacks – which take chips and memory devices that traditionally sit side-by-side on a silicon wafer and stacks them together on top of one another -- presents one of the most promising approaches to enhancing chip performance beyond its predicted limits.