Recently Rambus announced that it was using cryogenic temperatures to boost computer performance in large datacenters. This research is being done in a joint project with Microsoft who is developing a processor based on Josephson Junctions.
This is an effort to provide a performance increases greater than can be attained through standard semiconductor scaling. The research project aims to attain improvements in cycle time, power consumption, and compute density, leading to better energy efficiency and cost of ownership (COO). The companies hope to gain side benefits of being able to squeeze more bits onto a DRAM chip thus reducing cost per bit, improving performance, and making DRAM chips less costly to produce.
The system these two companies are researching uses a memory system that is cooled to 77 degrees Kelvin (77°K) with a processor that operates at 4°K. To do this the memory system is bathed in liquid nitrogen while the processor is cooled by liquid helium. The temperatures are the boiling points of these two liquids.
Surprisingly, the fact that these two subsystems are in different Continue reading “Super-Cooled DRAM for Big Power Savings”
