Question AirJet cooling for Laptop chips!

[FlameTail]

Frore secures $100M, collabs with Intel to create a new way to cool processors | TechCrunch

Frore Systems, a startup creating new ways to cool computer hardware, has raised $100 million in a funding round led by Qualcomm and others.

www.google.com

Better Than Fans? New 'AirJet' Chip Promises To Overhaul Laptop Cooling

The San Jose-based Frore Systems claims the new cooling technology can deliver a 50% to 100% increase in performance for laptops without generating much sound.

www.pcmag.com

This is so cool. And Qualcomm apparently invested $100 million so it seems legit.

 

[FlameTail]

Which is marketing nonsense. I can reverse a fan and it doesn't "blast out the dust".

The difference is that the AirJet has a gazillion times the pressure of a fan.

 

[coercitiv]

a gazillion times the pressure of a fan

Actual quote from the AirJet white paper.

 

[soresu]

Which is marketing nonsense. I can reverse a fan and it doesn't "blast out the dust"

Fan motion doesn't really stop the dust collecting on heatsink fins in the first place given build up seems inevitable in all fan based systems I have seen.

Part of that I think maybe the fact that most fans cannot overcome the boundary layer effect preventing airflow from directly affecting the surface of the heatsink - this being one of the chief claims Frore makes their jet impingement generating MEMS arrays (the core of the AirJet product) is capable of.

 

[mindless1]

The difference is that the AirJet has a gazillion times the pressure of a fan.

All the deeper to suck the dust IN, then once it has deposited, all the more it impedes blowing it OUT. This rate of clogging can of course be mitigated by ample filter area, but that takes up space, and still aligns with the idea of disposable hardware which combined with the marketing about losing performance, seems the best fit for high end phones with huge/heavy batteries to support this higher performance (heat=battery drain).

You might be able to remove the components, use an air compressor and/or ultrasonic bath to clean them, both things that the average computer owner will not do, especially not on a phone or tablet where their advantages make a little sense.

I'm more than happy to stick with a passively cooled phone. Performance is already good enough for most real world uses.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Competition! https://www.techspot.com/news/102224-ventiva-shows-off-tech-keep-chips-devices-cool.html

 

[yottabit]

Competition! https://www.techspot.com/news/102224-ventiva-shows-off-tech-keep-chips-devices-cool.html

“at heart the reality is that cooling technology has not changed in 40+ years”

Sure I remember using a phase change vapor-chamber based heatsink with 6 heat pipes, and quad 140 mm silent brushless pulse-width modulated Noctua fans on my 80286, wasn’t everyone?

 

[soresu]

“at heart the reality is that cooling technology has not changed in 40+ years”

Sure I remember using a phase change vapor-chamber based heatsink with 6 heat pipes, and quad 140 mm silent brushless pulse-width modulated Noctua fans on my 80286, wasn’t everyone?

The same basic reliance on rotating fans with an electromagnetic motor to spin them for air cooling solutions is probably what they mean even if they are being disingenuous about the heat transfer mechanisms from the processors to the fans.

Still a fundamental flaw in the whole heat pipe paradigm is how little surface area actually comes into contact with the fins they are threaded through.

It feels like if every heat pipe could end in a separate super flat vapor chamber instead of fins then the entire solution could be more efficient.

 

[FlameTail]

Competition! https://www.techspot.com/news/102224-ventiva-shows-off-tech-keep-chips-devices-cool.html

So is that approach better than Frore's AirJets?

 

[igor_kavinski]

So is that approach better than Frore's AirJets?

Possibly. It can scale up to 30W heat dissipation while AirJet is limited to about 5W (would need 6 of them stacked to match). They don't claim to be dustproof like Airjet though.

How It Works - Ventiva

ventiva.com

One important distinction is that venting the heat outside is the responsibility of the laptop OEM with AirJet.

Beyond fans: AirJet's radical CPU cooling chips can double laptop performance

Startup Frore Systems is working with Intel on developing the AirJet, a chip that actually cools your laptop's processor far better than a fan.

www.pcworld.com

Ventiva also claims to enable thinner, lighter devices whereas AirJet aims to just replace fans in existing form factors.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It feels like if every heat pipe could end in a separate super flat vapor chamber instead of fins then the entire solution could be more efficient.

Another possibility is creating a heatpipe with microchannels that allows heat dissipation at a molecular level.

There is this but I don't know it seems a bit large: https://www.calyos-tm.com/technologies/micro-channel-heat-pipes

 

[FlameTail]

Possibly. It can scale up to 30W heat dissipation while AirJet is limited to about 5W (would need 6 of them stacked to match). They don't claim to be dustproof like Airjet though.

How It Works - Ventiva

ventiva.com

Ok, so is Ventiva's time to market and cost, better than AirJet?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Ok, so is Ventiva's time to market and cost, better than AirJet?

Question only they can answer

 

[yottabit]

The same basic reliance on rotating fans with an electromagnetic motor to spin them for air cooling solutions is probably what they mean even if they are being disingenuous about the heat transfer mechanisms from the processors to the fans.

Still a fundamental flaw in the whole heat pipe paradigm is how little surface area actually comes into contact with the fins they are threaded through.

It feels like if every heat pipe could end in a separate super flat vapor chamber instead of fins then the entire solution could be more efficient.

Ionic propulsion and jet impingement cooling are tech that has been around a very long time too in aerospace. Just no one ever decided to create cool marketing buzzwords and stick it in a smartphone.

Heat pipes weren’t seeing widespread use in consumer electronics until the mid to late 1990s when they started popping up in laptops. So it’s totally disingenuous to say the tech hasn’t changed. What about AIO liquid cooling which is fairly mainstream now? Sure there were some mainframes that were liquid cooled, but it wasn’t in mainstream market until the 2000s.

And even the argument it’s some different type of physics is flawed - both the AirJet and this Ionic Whatever Engine are both still blowing air. I personally think heat pipes and vapor chambers were a revolutionary advance in thermal design. But anyway I don’t know why I’m so ornery about it, I’m sure some random tech blogger doesn’t know any better, if the article was even written by a human

 

[yottabit]

My fundamental issue is that the advancements in packaging these technologies and manufacturing methods like MEMS are really exciting on their own. So why do these companies (and to a larger degree is the tech media) always have to mix in the actual advancement with grandiose and clearly false claims? As soon as I read some BS on the marketing it makes me skeptical of the whole thing.

 

[soresu]

Just no one ever decided to create cool marketing buzzwords and stick it in a smartphone

Create cool marketing buzzwords =/= non sensor type MEMS tech maturity (for AirJet), something that wasn't possible until much more recently for these use cases, as backed up by the recent surge in MEMS speakers also.

I'm plenty dubious about Frore's claims though given both LTT and others have noted AirJet is in fact fairly audible already even in its 1st gen form.

We'll have to see if future iterations can lower the noise, or at least not make it worse while increasing the cooling effect.

My guess would be not - or at least perhaps requiring acoustic metamaterials to mask the noise (something I find a more interesting subject area for PC cooling anyway).

I also remember the IT world being abuzz about ionic cooling years ago, and then it sank without a trace, possibly because it runs too high a risk of static damage to the PCB and silicon.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I also remember the IT world being abuzz about ionic cooling years ago, and then it sank without a trace, possibly because it runs too high a risk of static damage to the PCB and silicon.

Environmental protective coating on the PCB could prevent that, do you think?

 

[soresu]

Heat pipes weren’t seeing widespread use in consumer electronics until the mid to late 1990s when they started popping up in laptops. So it’s totally disingenuous to say the tech hasn’t changed

Not a point I was getting at - I meant the way of producing the airflow hadn't changed much in terms of mainstream use beyond the humble fan.

I do agree heat pipes were definitely a significant change, I even remember my first heat pipe HSF back in the mid 00s.

I heard of 'pulsating heat pipes' as a more hardcore variant of the technology first developed in the 90s - I wonder if they could come into ICT in the next 20 years 🤔

 

[soresu]

Environmental protective coating on the PCB could prevent that, do you think?

Search me.

I know a little bit about PCB manufacture through my dad who used to design and test them, but beyond that my knowledge is pretty thin on the ground.

 

[yottabit]

Create cool marketing buzzwords =/= non sensor type MEMS tech maturity (for AirJet), something that wasn't possible until much more recently for these use cases, as backed up by the recent surge in MEMS speakers also.

I'm plenty dubious about Frore's claims though given both LTT and others have noted AirJet is in fact fairly audible already even in its 1st gen form.

We'll have to see if future iterations can lower the noise, or at least not make it worse while increasing the cooling effect.

My guess would be not - or at least perhaps requiring acoustic metamaterials to mask the noise (something I find a more interesting subject area for PC cooling anyway).

I also remember the IT world being abuzz about ionic cooling years ago, and then it sank without a trace, possibly because it runs too high a risk of static damage to the PCB and silicon.

At MEMS scale I wonder if they could just push the frequency range up outside of human hearing range. Would be interesting. Don’t worry about your pets going crazy everytime your phone warms up

I haven’t heard a great audio recording of one of those but I imagine most of the noise is from the high velocity air