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Posted on 17-03-2010

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Researchers at the University of Rochester have unveiled a new water-cooling technology as a deserving successor to the breakthrough research done by IBM on “thermal paste” in 2007 and MIT on “polyethylene” earlier this month.

IBM's thermal paste solution

IBM’s thermal paste technology involved a cooling system with “tree-like branched trenches” engraved on the copper cap, to enable a thin layer of thermal paste application with reduced pressure on the processor chip; resulting in a two-fold increase in cooling performance.

MIT's polyethylene solution

As if to set new records in the breakthrough research, MIT scientists recently unveiled ‘Polyethylene’ as a processor cooling polymer by manifesting its property to conduct heat in a Uni-direction – away from the processor. However, this technology has not yet been implemented in a real-world scenario. It is proposed to see its first appearance on Dell’s systems in the near future.

Silicon-based water-cooling technology

Within a week of MIT’s critical breakthrough, Researchers at the University of Rochester have proposed another breakthrough research which uses Silicon-based water-cooling technology to suppress excessive heat generated by the CPU. This technology involves channeling the water coolant flow through nanometer grooves carved on the silicon semiconductor chip. The nanometer channel structures are intended to be designed in a manner so as to achieve upward water coolant flow against the principles of gravity, and also trap photon charges in them in the process. As a result of high-density photons trapped in the nanometer channels, the surface of the silicon could appear pitch-black in colour, as per information provided by the researchers. If the research yields successful results, you might actually witness super-cooled streams of water invading the privacy of your turbo-charged PCs and the confines of super-powered processors in the near future. Meanwhile, check out this cool video that predicts a rewarding solution to all the over-heating problems with processors in the future: