A four-year-old company is coming to market soon with an unexpected technology to cool CPUs and SoCs. Frore Systems has developed a cooling chip it calls AirJet that sits on top of a heat-generating chip and cools it without the need for mechanical fans. By Josh Norem.
It’s 2.8mm thick and uses pulsating inlets to suck air into it and exhaust it out the sides. The company claims its “solid-state” cooling solution allows for double the CPU performance compared with using traditional methods. It’s secured $100 million in funding and is now partnering with Intel to bring its technology to the company’s Evo line of laptops.
The AirJet is designed to deal with the ever-shrinking nature of our electronic devices. As phones, tablets, and laptops get smaller, cooling them becomes more difficult. When insufficient cooling is applied, a CPU will throttle, lowering its clock speeds to reduce temps. This naturally results in decreased performance. Frore Systems claims its AirJet tackles this problem better than a fan, without taking much room inside the device. The heart of the issue is how long a CPU can maintain its maximum clock speed with peak power consumption.
According to CEO Dr. Seshu Madhavapeddy in an interview with PCWorld, a 1.8GHz ARM processor with four AirJet Minis will be able to run at 3.5GHz “forever.” An AirJet Pro that’s made for x86 could run at PL1 at 2.1GHz instead of 1.4GHz with a fan. Additionally, the AirJet in a 15-inch laptop would produce just 29 dBA of sound, instead of 42 dBA with a fan. Interesting read!
[Read More]