Scientists are developing 3D microprocessors cooled from the inside through channels as thin as a human hair filled with a liquid coolant. This method is currently being developed by researchers from the EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) and its sister organisation ETH Zurich to boost the performance of future computers. The CMOSAIC project, under the leadership of John R. Thome in Lausanne, aims to develop processors 10 times more powerful with as many transistors per cubic centimetre as there are neurons in the same volume of a human brain a functional density greater than ever before. IBM has just signed a partnership to join the adventure. Its Zurich-based lab will work together with the researchers from the Lausanne and Zurich Federal Institutes of Technology.

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