cooling manufacturer Flore Systems reportedly unveiled the world’s first solid-state cooling system designed to cool CPUs, GPUs and SoCs running inside devices such as laptops, handheld consoles and tablets. A cooling design called AirJet does not require a fan, instead it uses ultrasonic waves to push air through the cooler. As a result, the device is incredibly thin and capable of dissipating the same amount of heat as a fan-based cooler, while maintaining a very low power consumption and quiet footprint.
Frore Systems has not announced an actual computer with an Airjet solid state cooler. However, the company has already partnered with the likes of Intel and Qualcomm, so we can expect to see Intel and ARM-based laptops with this new cooler technology in the future.
“The future of laptop performance and design rests on advances in thermal engineering,” said Josh Newman, vice president and general manager of mobile innovation at Intel, in a press release. “We worked closely with Frore Systems to integrate AirJet into his Intel Evo platform.
The company has two models, AirJet Mini and AirJet Pro, both of which are only 2.8mm thick. Both models take air in through his four slits at the top of the chiller and enter the interior of the chiller where a small membrane vibrates at ultrasonic frequencies to push the air out the sides of the chiller. .
The main difference between Mini and Pro is size and cooling capacity. As the name suggests, the Mini is the smaller of the two and is intended to cool ultra-thin notebooks and tablets. The Mini delivers a total heat dissipation of 5.25W with a processor die temperature of 85°C, with a maximum power consumption of just 1W. The Mini produces 1,750 Pascal back pressure, weighs just 11 grams, and is 27.5 mm wide and 41.5 mm long.
The Pro model is a slightly larger model designed to cool slightly larger (but still thin) mobile laptops and gaming consoles. The Pro features 10.5W of cooling power – with the same 85°C die temperature, peak power consumption is just 1.75W. The Pro has the same 1,750 Pascal back pressure, but with a larger 31.5mm x 71.5mm footprint, the Pro can cool significantly more power than the Mini. The Pro’s only real drawbacks are its slightly heavier weight of 22 grams and its slightly higher audio profile of 24dBA (versus the mini’s 21dBA).
A notebook implementation designed with AirJets in mind has multiple coolers mounted on top of a vapor chamber heatsink within a thermal solution subassembly. Likewise, the PCB is designed to accommodate subassemblies, ensuring that the processor makes contact with the vapor chamber in the middle of his PCB.
For ventilation, AirJets intake and exhaust air only from the back of the notebook chassis. One large air intake slit is located in the middle of the laptop (behind the display) and draws air directly into the AirJet device. Once that air reaches the heat pipes in the vapor chamber, the AirJet expels the hot air through two small exhaust slits adjacent to the intake slits on the left and right sides of the notebook chassis.
This ventilation design features air intakes at the bottom of the chassis to solve the normal laptop air circulation problem. Placing the laptop on a soft surface such as a sofa or on your lap often blocks the airflow from the bottom fan. That’s no longer an issue as the intake and exhaust vents are on the back of the laptop.
As another bonus, the cooling design is designed to swirl air around the notebook’s keyboard area, preventing hot spots from accumulating on the laptop’s surface.
Theoretical performance potential
A theoretical example of a 13″ fanless notebook with 10W of passive cooling. His AirJet version, which houses four AirJet Minis, combines the power of both passive cooling and AirJets solid-state coolers without increasing the size of the notebook’s chassis, increasing the notebook’s cooling output to 10W. can be doubled from to 20W.
In the theoretical case where a laptop’s CPU could take advantage of all this extra cooling, the CPU would run 100% faster with the AirJet solution and keep the whisper quiet.
