Overheating is nowadays a general problem for the big server rooms,heavy usage on PC’s etc. Intel has come up with an indigenous solution: Submerging the entire motherboard.
While liquids act as an efficient coolant in other industries, Intel has decided to take a step further by introducing coolants in the world of computers. By partnering up with 3M, Intel is planing to dunk in the computers so that they remain cool. This, if achieved, will turn out better than the traditional air ventilated cooling system. It will also turn out to be more economical than the present systems.
Here is all the chemistry behind it:
Supercomputers, that have Intel Xenon Chips inside have been dropped into a tank of Novec. Novec was developed by 3M, the same company that made the world famous Scotch Magic Tape. Novec is dielectric and non-conductive in nature, so it will serve as the perfect coolant for the computer systems. If utilized to the maximum extent, it will help to slash down electricity bills by 90% at the data centers.
But the major problem is the maintenance. Servers are known to crash and they being submerged inside will not help the maintenance team, as they need to be drained of the coolant first and then replaced. Also recent tests have shown that Novec is optically active and thus it will affect how the photons traverse through the optical fiber cables in between the servers. Hence, the server racks must also be arranged accordingly so that the normal flow of signals are not disrupted.
This method is currently under testing and still needs a lot of research to be done. But it will be a boon to all the IT based companies those have constrictions on space.
