Gen 3 “Embedded” Cooling: Key Enabler for Energy Efficient Data Centers

The achievement of high computational efficiency in the operation of data centers, server farms, and high-performance computers is intimately tied to the development and application of advanced thermal management techniques, capable of addressing high power dissipation, on-chip hotspots, and high heat density in chip stacks. The current Gen-2 remote cooling paradigm is shown to be incapable of meeting these challenges and to have exacerbated the demise of the venerable Moore's law. It is argued that completion of the “inward migration” of thermal packaging technology, through the development and application of Gen-3 embedded cooling techniques, utilizing local on-chip microfluidic and thermoelectric heat extraction, can enable highly efficient computational platforms.