Direct die cooling isn’t a new technology.

The problem with the approach in the article is that they want to integrate it with the actual die.

The biggest issues with this is that they assume all the water coming into a data centre is pure when that isn’t the case.

Plenty of attempts have been made at direct die cooling in a similar manner but the same issue always arises which is that they clog up because the water picks up impurities in the pipes or whatever else.

As a result, you end up with hotspots on the chip which is why we use cold plates or immersion cooling instead.

This just means you’re exacerbating the already existing problems that direct die has because you’re now dealing with clogging happening inside the actual die.

“Unlike immersion cooling, it does not require tanks, specialized dielectric fluids, or major data center retrofits.“

Moving heat from the chip die to the wafer is only one step of the process. You still need to take that heat and dissipate it elsewhere for it to actually cool down.