What's the core is made from?...

Is'nt etching engraved?...

What's the core is made from?...

Silicon... :D Its so obvious it hurts!

Sorry dude, obvious to you(and half the world maybe :p), but I always equate silicone with tube or sealant and the cores not made out of either of those is it?...

Now can you tell me whats in the core?, is it layered?, or is it one 'lump'?. what is it there for if it contains no 'curcuitry'?.is it there to protect something underneath?. I'm wondering if it can indeed be engraved with channels for direct die cooling?, and how deep if yes?...

For what it's worth...

I contacted the makers of the ATTA tape (see liquid forum) and they pointed out to me that Intel was a big customer. It seems possible to me that they use the stuff under the P4 heatspreader, but we'd need to hear it from someone who's done it. I'm probably way off base...

I don't know what the core is made of, but I doubt that it's simply silicone. The P4 heatspreader is very thin, less than 1 mm, so I wouldn't cut into it. It was designed as a heat spreader, and it's probably best to leave it at that.

I was thinking of a Palamino core, or a T~Bred(can't spell Thoroughbred ;)) it's about 1~1.5mm thick is'nt it?, some 0.5^mm grooves would double surface area for direct die cooling...

Hey MadDog,

It's not just you, a lot of us get our silicons and silicones confused... :) That little "e" makes a big difference!
Silicone refers to silicone tubing (Siloxane polymers and amorphous silica) and silicone RTV sealants, etc. And no, CPU cores are not made out of silicone.

The CPU (and other integrated circuits) are built up on a silicon substrate in many layers. Photolithography, etching, masking, doping, etc., etc. Newer chips contain various varieties of doped silicon to make all the semiconductors (P-types and N-types) and numerous copper or aluminum traces to connect things together. It is not possible to drill or engrave coolant channels in an existing chip but I beleive it may be possible to design them in, in the not too distant future.

Just think if you built a chip using diamond as the substrate instead of silicon! Fantastic thermal properties and some interesting optical qualities as well for a hybrid electro-optical 3D chip or cubit. Now that could lead to some serious number crunchin... :D

RoboTech

Light speed!, wonder what the Mhz equivilent is :p...

I think they're be CPU's designed for DD H20 cooling soon, micros channeled/bored perforated cores for high pressure/velocity mega cooling...

I think if you could make a wafer thin Cu 'plate' with 0.5mm^ channels it'd do direct die cooling some good, it might not technicaly be 'direct die' then, but imagine double the surface area!, TIM layer is the setback though, you'd have to epoxy it as you'd not be able to put any pressure on it to bear...