Two-Phase Immersion Liquid Cooling Circuit Board Aggregation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Datacenters face challenges in efficiently cooling devices to prevent overheating while minimizing costs, as traditional cooling methods like liquid cooling are expensive, and copper traces on PCBs are limited in signal transmission over longer distances.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a two-phase immersion liquid cooling (2PILC) method where circuit boards are submerged in a low-boiling-point, non-conductive liquid, allowing heat transfer through boiling and condensation, and uses flexible orthogonal connectors for board-to-board connections, reducing the need for cables and enhancing thermal design points.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Temperature
If liquid cooling is used to prevent device overheating, then device temperature is reduced and overheating is avoided, but the total cost of ownership increases due to expensive cooling materials
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive liquid cooling materials with inexpensive air cooling components. Specifically, it uses air flow paths, fans, and heat sinks that can be manufactured at low cost compared to liquid cooling systems. The design accepts that air cooling requires more space but achieves the same thermal management function at a fraction of the material cost.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the cooling function from the computational device itself and implements it at the rack level. Instead of each device having its own liquid cooling system, the rack infrastructure provides centralized air cooling through dedicated air flow paths, cooling plenums, and heat exchangers that serve multiple devices simultaneously, reducing per-device cooling costs.
2Length of moving object
If fiber optic cables are used to provide communicative coupling between clusters of devices, then signal transmission over longer distances is achieved, but the cost increases and space is consumed that could otherwise be used for devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple communication functions into a single integrated switch device. Instead of using separate fiber optic cables for each device connection, a centralized switch provides communicative coupling between multiple computational devices, reducing the total number of cables needed and freeing up space for additional devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The switch serves multiple functions: it provides network communication, enables device discovery, facilitates cluster formation, and supports both short and long-distance communication. This multi-functional approach replaces what would otherwise require multiple specialized components including fiber optic cables, reducing overall system cost and space requirements.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach effectively manages heat dissipation in a dense compute environment, reduces the cost of cooling, and supports high-density computing with low latency memory pool sharing, while minimizing the use of expensive cooling fluids and cables.
Implementation Method 1
heat transfer through boiling and condensation
Implementation Method 2
heat transfer through boiling and condensation
Implementation Method 3
heat transfer through boiling and condensation
Data Source
AI summary
Examples described herein relate to a system. The system can include a container that contains fluid to provide two phase immersion liquid cooling (2PILC) for a system within the container. The container can enclose a first circuit board with a first side of the first circuit board is conductively coupled to at least one device. The container can enclose a motherboard conductively coupled to a second side of the first circuit board with a first side of the motherboard is conductively coupled to the second side of the first circuit board. The motherboard can include at least four edges. Connectors can conductively connect the motherboard with a second circuit board. The second circuit board can include at least four edges and an edge of the motherboard is oriented approximately 90 degrees to an edge of the second circuit board. At least one device can include one or more of: a processor, memory device, accelerator device, or network interface.