Firm pioneers 3D printing copper coolers directly onto processors using OLED manufacturing techniques with 'pixel perfect accuracy' — Fabric8Labs can use either human or AI-optimized cooler designs

The general trend in 3D printing is for faster and larger machines that provide more build volume with an increase in output. But sometimes it's just as cool to see things printed on a microscale — the benefits of microscopic 3D print can be rather macro.

Fabric8Labs revealed at Hot Chips that it has developed a cool new way to 3D print copper into super small structures that can be used for directly cooling processors, which is a huge practical impact to come out of such tiny technology.

Image 1 of 15

This process is accomplished using a method similar to resin printing but instead of relying on UV light, it integrates OLED display tech. This process is claimed to enable extreme precision, allowing for what Fabric8Labs describes as "pixel-perfect accuracy". With this technology, they've demonstrated a few 3D printable surfaces that can be applied to chips for cooling.

The way resin printing usually works, beams of light are targeted into a vat of resin, causing it to harden layer by layer. In this case, Fabric8Labs takes advantage of electrical charges instead of beams of light to deposit copper. This type of 3D printing is known as electromechanical additive manufacturing (or ECAM for short).

At the moment, it is able to 3D print custom cooling plates with a variety of intricate designs that the company claims are better optimized for cooling compared to standard straight channels. These designs range from custom configurations created by team members to those optimized using AI.

The straight channel design of regular cooling plates is more prone to clogging, but the ability to 3D print cooling plates enables creating offset channels that prevent this from happening. At the moment, the team is able to print these unique cooling plates for manual installation. However, the future could consist of 3D printing these cooling structures directly onto chips.

If you're new to 3D printing and want to dabble in it yourself, we don't blame you. It's an exciting hobby that's only growing more exciting as time goes on. Check out our list of best 3D printers to see which ones we recommend and get an idea of what to look out for when shopping.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.