Heat Out of Small Packages

Compact cooling devices are taking shape to deal with the next generation of computer chips. One of the research projects, conducted at the University of Maryland under initial sponsorship from several private companies and federal government laboratories, studied liquid cooling. In order to avoid the design complexities associated with direct liquid cooling, and to make the device of near-term applicability to systems designers, the research team at Maryland decided to use indirect liquid cooling. The university researchers focused on the use of two phase thermosyphons to meet these requirements. Researchers conceptualized a two-chamber, closed-loop device with an evaporator chamber at the chip and a condenser some distance away connected through tubing. The working fluid tested in laboratory experiments was the dielectric coolant PF 5060 made by 3M Co. The University of Maryland and Hewlett-Packard team selected two test beds to evaluate the performance and ease of integration of these devices within existing high-performance computing systems.