Unlocking the true potential of 3D CPUs with micro-fluidic cooling

As technology scaling is coming to an end, 3D integration is a promising technology to continue transistor density scaling in the future and facilitate new architectural designs. However heat removal is a serious challenge in 3D ICs. A promising solution is micro-fluidic (MF) cooling. In this paper we argue that aggressive cooling methods are necessary to unlock the true potential of 3D ICs. We simulate a spectrum of 3D CPU architectures which offer vast improvements to performance, but are inefficient and thermally infeasible with air cooling alone. Our results show that integrating micro-fluidic cooling can increase average performance by 2.62x and energy efficiency by 1.78x by unlocking new architectural configurations.