Chips these days are pretty much flat. And I’m not talking about tortilla chips. They call those silicon things wafers for a reason: all those little gates and channels are lying flat in a single layer. Chipmakers know that you can stack chips on top of each other and multiply your computing power due to the decreased distance the signal has to travel (I’m kind of at the edge of my knowledge here, someone correct me if I’m wrong), as well as the fact that you can fit more computing power into a given area. The problem is, all those electrons flying around end up generating heat, and if your chip is layered, there’s less space for the heat to escape to. Without a proper cooling solution, the stacked chips would melt from the inside out almost instantly.

Well, IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory is looking into ways to have their cake and cool it, too. They’ve cut tiny canals into the chips that, once the chips are stacked, water can flow through without risk of leaking into the paths of the gates and channels. Cool water goes in one side, sucks up the heat, and comes back out to be cooled by whatever they’ve got rigged up, a desk fan or something.

I don’t really see this getting into your laptop any time soon, but it’s cool to know.