3D-Printed Bare-Die Liquid Chip Coolers Smash Barriers, up to 3.5X Improvement
A series of 3D-printed processor coolers were one of the most interesting presentations at ITF World, a conference hosted by chip research giant imec in Antwerp, Belgium. These prototype waterblocks boost the ability to cool dense processors, like CPUs and GPUs, by up to 3.5X over the kinds of solution we see in the best CPU coolers today, thus enabling higher power density and unlocking untapped performance in modern chips. The results of this research could lead to radical new watercoolers for all sorts of chips. Bare-die cooling that forces liquid directly over the processor die is emerging as one of the most obvious steps forward to deal with the excess heat generated by newer chips, and imec is leading the way with new techniques to unlock the full performance of the densest process nodes. That's becoming more important with each new generation of chips as power consumption skyrockets due to the diminishing power reduction scaling with smaller nodes. Additionally, smaller transistors push power density higher, complicating cooling efforts and ultimately restricting chip performance. The ultimate goal for chip designers is to get more work done in a smaller space. Still, today's chips are already power-constrained, and areas of 'dark silicon' are turned off while the chip is operating to remain within certain TDP and temperature limits. That means most chips use only part of their potential during normal operation. Moreover, the problem is only intensifying with each generation of chips — modern CPUs like AMD's Epyc Genoa already top out at 400W, and roadmaps point to 600W server chips in the future. In contrast to the standard watercooling approaches that use a self-contained waterblock that has a cold plate mated with a chip heatspreader to cool the processor, the prototype 3D-printed coolers pictured in the album below force liquid directly over the bare processor die, thus improving cooling capabilities by pumping coolant directly to the surface of the processor.
The 3D-printed waterblocks allow rapid prototyping, and imec uses different types of standard polymers used in 3D printing to ensure the waterblocks can handle the temperature loads. It's unclear if one could print these designs on one of the best 3D printers. The 3D-printed waterblocks can be customized in several different ways, with custom nozzles arrays (you can see these in the images) blasting liquid directly onto the chip surface in targeted areas, such as directly over individual cores or high-heat-generating areas of the chip used for vector operations, to improve cooling capabilities.
