EP1 | 新一代節能散熱王者 - 浸沒式冷卻大解密! Feat. Roger

Follow along with English subtitles on Youtube

在本集節目中，我們邀請到 Thermal 領域的專家 Roger 與我們暢談浸沒式冷卻的大小事

 🌏 如果你好奇⋯ 

• 浸沒式冷卻到底是什麼?  
• 液冷、浸沒式冷卻到底差在哪? 
• 想知道為什麼浸沒式冷卻這麼夯?  
• 想了解Thermal 熱流部門工程師/研發團隊的工作日常? 

🎙️ 那就一定要收聽這集的《Take a Byte | 科技咬一口》！ 

🚀 記得訂閱我們的節目，每個月都有新的內容等著你發現。Take a Byte，讓我們開始這場數位之旅吧！🌟  

Transcript

0:00

Hello, everyone, welcome to Take a Byte. I am Ray. In this program we will discuss IT, network technology and industry issues If you're an English Listener, please turn on the closed captions. Then this episode What we are going to discuss is Immersion Cooling. If you are paying attention to technology-related information, this term may be unfamiliar to some people. So this time we invite Roger, an expert in the field of Thermal to talk to us. Introducing what Immersion Cooling is. Hello everyone, I am Roger. I don’t dare to call myself an expert. In fact, there are many experts in the field of Immersion Cooling. It is just that our department happens to be doing such a study, so I may have the opportunity to come here today to share with you guys what we have done. The actual problems encountered by customers, some situations, and some future possibilities we have seen. we mainly do the most basic air cooling then we will do some liquid cooling and then there is the so-called immersion cooling. In the middle of this process, because air cooling and water cooling, Immersion Cooling will have some key components that might need cooling Of course, some so-called IP will be generated in the process to help the company strive for more business opportunities and then consolidate some of our positions. In fact, Immersion Cooling seems to be quite important. You just mentioned the liquid cooling which is similar to the one that many people have very cool computer setups. with RGB lights. What's the difference between Liquid Cooling and Immersion Cooling? The biggest difference is that when you open the box, there is a bunch of water pipes inside. The water pipes are carried by some heat source passing through the water which is sealed in a tube This is generally called a Closed Loop. Or you can call it Liquid Cooling There are many different names If it is connected to the computer room connected to an entire rack, and then connected to The CDU (Computer Room Distribution Unit). If these things are put together, we call it Rack Liquid Cooling If today it is a large Tank, everything must be soaked in it. Then it's Immersion Cooling Everything is soaked in it. and then Liquid Cooling is for an individual machine. To help it dissipate heat for some important components The concept of Immersion Cooling was developed in around 1940 That early? Yes, very early But it was actually used in something else. Most people probably know what it is, our external transformer box. If you open the external transformer box, you will find that it is filled with mineral oil That is a type of Immersion Cooling, We were actually using mineral oil for cooling in the early days. Around 1960 At that time, IBM began to come up with a concept and wanted to use it as a large-scale computer. where the equipment was soaked in But in fact, until recently, we have actually used air cooling to solve such As the density of heat becomes higher and higher, what we see is generally, some people will say that this CPU may be 150 watts. What is the concept of 150 watts for a normal person? It is electrical power or thermal power. But in fact, these two things are different. Electric power refers to the amount of input to give you 150 watts. But is the actual heat you reflect at 150 watts? It is different What we have to deal with today is the boiling heat that comes out. We have to take it away smoothly. If we use our ordinary Air Cooling, so-called air cooling Heat Sink may become less and less efficient. What we are discussing now is that it generates 150 watts of heat evenly. As components become smaller, so does the surface area the heat density will become very high. When the so-called Power Density becomes high, there will be a focal Hot Spot Then it won't be able to be solved by traditional air cooling You will find that the Heat Sinks are getting bigger, heavier, and more inefficient. Only then do we start to talk about whether we can use Liquid Cooling. To put it simply, it is to make heat dissipation more efficient, more efficient, and more energy-saving. Is it possible to be more energy-saving? Of course, it could be more energy-saving. Then it's time for me to stand up for the Thermal Team. Immersion Cooling isn't because we can't handle the heat, it's because we aim to handle it better. Immersion Cooling is mainly used in some Hyper Computing, that is, high-speed computing. We hope that within a limited space we can consolidate larger computing resources like AI Servers or General Purpose Servers as much as possible. This is one of the applications, so then there is the issue of energy saving because actually in the Data Center If we break down its power consumption more than 30% of the power is used for cooling. So you can imagine that as long as we use this 30% of the cooling power to shrink it, it will directly become The electricity bill Save money immediately and we can get more customers In manufacturing, especially factory assembly is pretty straight forward. All we have to do is put on a Heat Sink, lock it up, test it, and ship it, that's it. Immersion Cooling is a little more complicated when it is produced in our factory, how do do the testing we need to find a tank and do some basic tests and then take it back out, clean it. The entire PCBA or Chassis cannot be contaminated with any dust, so it may still need some more detailed packaging in the manufacturing process. It will not have any dust before being shipping to our customers and sinks into the tank we must ensure that there are no additional pollutants coming from our products. basically, there is a difference in the manufacturing process. Immersion Cooling. What do you think are the environmental impacts? Is there any way to improve it? For example, we recently had a partner project with a well-known customer, TSMC. They are using a two-phase Immersion Cooling. They have done direct calculations on this. It can save 40% of electricity on the spot and increase computing power by 10%. It reduces the use of cooling electricity. Most power generation uses coal. Therefore it will generate some carbon footprints If I save 40% of electricity. It means that I can directly reduce carbon emissions. This is the simplest contribution to ESG I think this is a bit complicated because there are many branches in the Cooling market. I should say how many proportions there will be. The vast majority of them will still use air-cooling because it has low to medium power consumption. I think there will be a slight amount of companies who will be forced to use Immersion Cooling. I use the word "forced" because they are suppressed by ESG Some E-commerce companies like Amazon build data centers very quickly they have no baggage so their whole new equipment can be designed for Immersion Cooling from the beginning They can decide to place a tank here from the beginning and not worry about any historical baggage like, this area originally had an old rack They don't want to waste money. Yes, they even have to clean the pipelines, etc. So the new market may be here. Its advantage is energy saving. The second advantage is that your equipment in the liquid, which is at a dust-proof state It is also not exposed to moisture So, it helps increase the lifetime of the equipment. It can also reduce electronic wastes This is a concept of sustainable corporation Immersion Cooling It will be the direction that some companies will take in the future I feel like this is progress for the times. I believe that Taiwan's technology for recycling and reusing waste liquids will continue to improve. In the future, Immersion Cooling won't be a bottleneck for development. It can be used in large quantities and even for general consumer products You may find that when you go home, what you see is an aquarium What's inside is your gaming computer setup That sounds pretty cool. Ok, so for the next episode, we'll learn more about How to recycle and reuse the liquid for Immersion Cooling Now it's time for Question of the day. Thank you for listening to today’s Take a Byte If you haven’t subscribed and followed please take a second and Hit that subscribe button. If you don’t want to see me, you can also listen to our programs on podcast platforms. Click the linkie below and follow us on Instagram You can also search for "Take a Byte" B.Y.T.E. Alright, that all for this episode, hope to see you next time!