N.C. State University has received one of its largest corporate grants to finance a private research project for Silicon Valley computing giant Intel.

Intel's $1.5 million contract with N.C. State pays for 13 professors, researchers and graduate students -- including an electrical and computer engineering professor from Duke University -- to improve on 3D computer chip technology.

The goal of the project is stack computer chips in a bid to boost the energy efficiency of a computer's processors by up to 25 percent. Achieving that efficiency goal would generate that much more computing power at server farms and other facilities that depend on gargantuan amounts of electricity to operate.

"We're re-architecting the computer, changing the way a computer works, to exploit the third dimension," said N.C. State electrical and computer engineering professor Paul Franzon, the lead researcher on the project.