Do you want a cool smartphone? The 1mm thin ‘fan-on-a-chip’ technology aims to make device overheating a thing of the past
Excessive heat can seriously affect the performance and lifespan of smartphones and tablets, causing them to limit or even shut down processing power to prevent damage. Users often experience how hot their devices can get during demanding tasks like playing graphically intensive games, and it’s a problem that’s only going to get worse as AI makes its way into our devices.
To address this problem, xMEMS laboratories has introduced the
Mike Housholder, VP of Marketing and Business Development at xMEMS, explained EE times that current solutions, such as heat spreaders and vapor chambers, “simply spread the heat over the entire surface of the device, but there is no physical way to dissipate the heat.”
Changing the way people perceive thermal management
The XMC-2400 functions like a real fan, and a single
The silent, vibration-free solid-state chip measures just 9.26 x 7.6 x 1.08 mm and weighs less than 150 milligrams, making it 96 percent smaller and lighter than non-silicon-based active cooling alternatives. It comes in packages with both top venting and side venting to fit a variety of system form factors.
“Our revolutionary µCooling ‘fan-on-a-chip’ design comes at a critical time in mobile computing,” said Joseph Jiang, CEO and co-founder of xMEMS. “Thermal management in ultra-mobile devices, which are now running more processor-intensive AI applications, is a huge challenge for manufacturers and consumers. Until XMC-2400, there was no solution for active cooling because the devices are so small and thin.”
“With µCooling, we are changing the way people perceive thermal management. The XMC-2400 is designed to actively cool even the smallest portable devices, enabling the thinnest, most powerful, AI-ready mobile devices. It’s hard to imagine that tomorrow’s smartphones and tablets other thin, performance-oriented devices without xMEMS µCooling technology,” Jiang added.