Thanks to their bold, groundbreaking projects, EPFL professors David Atienza, Volkan Cevher, and Sebastian Maerkl each won a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant.

The computer of the future, inspired by the human brain

With his Compusapien project, David Atienza, head of the Embedded Systems Laboratory (ESL), aims to create computers that are faster and 1,000 times more energy efficient than what’s currently on the market. The key concept is to revamp server architecture and use miniscule microfluidic channels to both cool the system and convert heat into electricity.

Atienza was inspired by the human brain. He initially came up with the idea of grouping the calculation units by function, “like the specialized groups of neurons in our brains,” he said. The computer’s processors and memory, typically aligned in a 2D structure, are instead re-designed and clustered in a 3D integration architecture, resulting in superior processing speed and much smaller latency to access large volumes of data, which are needed in Big Data applications.

To prevent the system from overheating, he puts microfluidic channels of 50-100 microns height in between each layer. These channels serve two functions: they cool the system with the fluid that flows through them, and they transform the heat they absorb into electricity via reactions of miniscule fuel cells contained in the channels. The electricity is then reinjected into the server system, generating substantial energy savings.

Atienza has already demonstrated the microfluidic channel technology feasibility on a conventional IBM server, through work carried out with Dr. Bruno Michel’s group at IBM Zurich. They were able to generate 6 watts of electricity from a server that uses 30. “We could even triple that figure by playing with the server architecture, the shape of the channels and the properties of the used microfluidic fuel cells,” he said. An ambitious project with correspondingly ample rewards. “We also need to rethink the power consumption of the devices we currently use. Even if you could drive a Ferrari every day, most of the time a Twingo would suffice.”

ERC Project: Computing Server Architecture with Joint Power and Cooling Integration at the Nanoscale

Text by Laure-Anne Pessina