Introducing AX-NV2 Direct-to-Chip Cooling for Blackwell
November 14, 2024– Mikros Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of advanced liquid cooling technologies for high-power electronics, will introduce the Ascutney AX-NV2 cold plate at this year’s Supercomputing Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta from November 19-21, 2024. Designed and optimized for the Nvidia Blackwell GPU series, product samples will be available in Hall B, booth #3825, and engineers will be available to answer questions.
With the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increase in power densities, hyperscalers (large cloud service providers), internet service providers, enterprises, industry, and governments are turning to liquid cooling solutions to improve data center performance and increase energy efficiency. The Ascutney AX-NV2 liquid cold plate is optimized for the accelerated computing of the Blackwell GPUs and this single-phase solution increases computing power and extends a chip’s lifespan.
“With greater heat transfer effectiveness at the chip level, the Ascutney AX-NV2 helps clients meet their data center sustainability goals by reducing the level of power needed for cooling. A major advantage lies in the fact that the inlet coolant on Mikros Technologies’ cold plates run at temperatures ten or more degrees higher than our competitors, while still achieving more effective cooling outcomes on high-power GPUs,” said Drew Matter, Mikros Technologies CEO.
The heat transfer effectiveness of the Ascutney AX-NV2 cold plate boosts a user’s thermal budget with lower thermal resistance than is possible with skived fin cold plates. Lower thermal resistance enables lower flow rates and higher inlet/outlet temperatures, improving power usage effectiveness (PUE) for data centers.
Product specifications for the Ascutney AX-NV2 include a cooling capacity of 60 watts per degree Celsius a flow rate of one liter per minutecapacity will increase with higher flow rates. It also has a low pressure drop at one liter per minute at 1.3 pounds per square inch (PSI). It can be lidded or lidless and will work with a wide variety of quick disconnect fluid line brands.
The standard silicon area dimensions for the Ascutney AX-NV2 are 53 mm x 58 mm, but the cold plate is customizable to fit various applications and can be zoned to optimize flow between the core die and high bandwidth memory (HBM) die. It will easily fit in a single rack unit (1U) and integrate with new or existing single-phase systems.
Every copper part in the Ascutney AX-NV2 cold plate is precision machined and joined using vacuum furnace brazing. This clean, low-pressure process creates leak-proof joints, and then each cold plate is tested using helium gas and a mass spectrometer to guarantee there are no leaks in the field.
“Product reliability is our top priority,” said Joe Sullivan, Mikros Technologies’ engineering manager. “When chips cost tens of thousands of dollars and servers run into the millions, providing leak-free, endurance tested cold plates is a critical part of our client’s computing investment.”
Mikros Technologies has been a cornerstone of innovation in New Hampshire for over 30 years. At its establishment in 1991, the company’s engineers spearheaded groundbreaking cooling solutions for NASA’s Johnson Space Center and space station electronics. Today, Mikros Technologies continues to innovate and is leading the way in B2B thermal management and precision jetting solutions, now backed by Jabil’s global scale. Specializing in R&D, engineering, manufacturing, and consulting services, the company is renowned for its proprietary technology that enhances electronics performance across various industries such as high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, semiconductor testing, renewable energy, and laser optics, and their custom EDM micro-nozzles are reshaping medical, scientific, and aerospace applications.