Liquid power for chips

摘要

Getting microchips wet is normally best avoided. But a new type of chip that is both powered and cooled by fluid pumping through it could power the computers, smartphones and tablets of the future. If the design is successful, its inventors at IBM argue an entire supercomputer -like Watson, the firm's natural-language-processing trivia savant - could one day be squeezed onto mobile devices small enough to fit in your pocket. The idea is inspired by the way the human brain is powered, says Bruno Michel, who is leading the work at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland. "The human brain is 10,000 times more dense and efficient than any computer today. That's possible because it uses only one, extremely efficient, network of capillaries and blood vessels to transport heat and energy, all at the same time," he says.