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AirJet – Solid-state chip for active device cooling
- Havoc 4y agoThis has great potential for the niche sorta between passive cooled laptop and active laptop. 5W even stacked isn't a lot...unless compared to passive then it suddenly looks gigantic
- peter_d_sherman 4y agoRelated: "Solid State Active Cooling Could Revolutionize Thermals" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E
- pontifier 4y agoInteresting, I had skipped over that video several times because I thought it was going to be talking about peltier coolers. This is very cool. I can't wait to get a thousand of them and build a silent vacuum cleaner.
- theamk 4y agodupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34467937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34467937
- fortran77 4y agoI don't think it's a "dupe" if it's a different link. It's more like a "see also"
- causality0 4y agoWe've seen the product, now time for the evidence. If they're right about their high pressure air stripping the insulating boundary layer from heat sinks it should be demonstrated with cooling benchmarks.
- ilyt 4y ago...the ones they post on site linked? Either way we'd have to wait till people in industry get their hands on test models
- DougN7 4y agoForget cooling - I want to mount some larger versions on some boots and start flying like Iron Man!
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoAt a smaller scale, it could be a combination VR headset and hairdryer.
- raydiatian 4y agoIs this an Indian company? Frore could be a play on crore which would make sense, but otherwise, good lord. Reminds me of that 30 rock joke about the “rural juror”. Feels like the corporate equivalent of 3-yo Timmy dressing himself for the family photo.
- nvalis 4y agoThe two founders have indian sounding names [0] at least, so it might be the case that this is what they are going for. [0] https://www.froresystems.com/team https://www.froresystems.com/team
- qrohlf 4y agoFunny that they clearly use a macbook as their "generic spinning laptop" image in the product video since this is sort of the one category of general computing device in which thermals seem to be more or less a solved problem due to the characteristics of the Apple Silicon chips.
- upon_drumhead 4y agoI thought the main difference between the studio and mini was the size of the heatsink allowed higher performance. It seems like if they could get the thermals better, the studio could shrink down to a mini size.
- mdasen 4y agoThey're solved and not solved. I love my M1 MacBook, but I also know that Apple worries a ton about thermal design. One of the big problems with the iPhone mini was dealing with the thermals in such a tiny package. While The M1 and M2 chips are allowing Apple to create great fanless and fan-lite designs, I'm sure Apple would love to be able to squeeze more CPU power into a MacBook Air or be able to offer even faster processors in a MacBook Pro by using more power. Intel has been showing off "laptop" chips that are faster than Apple's. I put "laptop" in quotes because Intel often benchmarks their 45W "laptop" processors that would never fit in anything like a MacBook Pro or most other laptops. Still, I'm sure Apple would love to be able to increase the thermal limit on their designs. Maybe even an iPad Pro could accommodate one of these (it looks like they're around 2mm thick). Apple has done wonders to create processors that work extremely well within low power/heat constraints. I still think they'd love to be able to remove more heat and give them more room for their designs.
- vagrantJin 4y ago> thermals seem to be more or less a solved problem due to the characteristics of the Apple Silicon chips. I am actually at a loss for words. So I'll ask a question instead. Do you really believe what you just said or do you have no clue how CPUs work and passive cooling works?
- rowanG077 4y agoThermals are never a solved problem. System designers simply use up what is available (and usually won't stop there). It's like saying processing speed is a solved problem. Engineers/scientist don't have any problems finding productive ways to use more processing speed.
- upon_drumhead 4y agoI'm a little confused by these two quotes. "The first ever solid state thermal solution" "Inside AirJet are tiny membranes that vibrate at ultrasonic frequency" How is it solid state if it has moving parts?
- etrautmann 4y agoLikely a piezo or mems device. Both of those use material flexture or deformation to achieve some output.
- defanor 4y agoDo piezoelectric fans count as being solid state too, then? If so, this one wouldn't be the first.
- weinzierl 4y ago"Do piezoelectric fans count as being solid state too, then?" Not in my book. The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear "solid-state" and "cooling" in a sentence is "peltier element". The name "AirJet" gave it already away though, that this is likely something different.
- defanor 4y ago> The name "AirJet" gave it already away though, that this is likely something different. They mention that those are MEMS membranes in the presentation [1]. But it also sounds like Airjet developers (or marketers) count MEMS membranes as solid-state, and piezoelectric fans as not, while I wonder where the line is. [1] https://youtu.be/YGxTnGEAx3E?t=146 https://youtu.be/YGxTnGEAx3E?t=146
- weinzierl 4y ago> "They mention that those are MEMS membranes in the presentation [1]." This video was really insightful, thanks. Especially interesting was, that they use an effect called jet impingement that is also used in jet engines. > "But it also sounds like Airjet developers (or marketers) count MEMS membranes as solid-state, and piezoelectric fans as not, while I wonder where the line is." I think I can imagine where this distinction comes from. MEMS devices can usually be manufactured in facilities and with materials and processes very similar to those used for producing semiconductor chips like processors. Piezoelectric elements, on the other hand, require special materials and their production doesn't fit very well into the common semiconductor manufacturing process. Now, the step to call everything traditional semiconductor industry related "solid-state" is not that big.
- ksec 4y agoI am willing to pay for it assuming it works without some pitfalls. They actually have a working prototype [1] to showcase in CES 2023. To put this in perspective, with this and TSMC matching towards 14A / 1.4nm we could have machine that is roughly 2X the performance of Macbook Pro with M2 Pro at the thickness and size of MacBook Air by the end of this decade. I am also hoping this will be more reliable than current Fanless cooling solution which tends to degrade after a few years. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago>current Fanless cooling solution which tends to degrade after a few years. What do you mean by that? I've had both PCs and laptops that were completely passively cooled and there was never any degradation. Lots of different cooling solutions, the issue is there isn't a perfect one that works for all wattage while having no drawbacks. Either it's excessive noise, limited performance, large size, high price, complicated maintanance and so on. The lofty claims they make are suspicious, I want to see this in action on a high performance chip without any other cooling.
- davidork 4y ago> fanless cooling solutions which tends to degrade after a few years. Thermal expansion/contraction between cooler and chip itself "pumps" out the thermal paste which over time degrades cooling performance. If the system is running 24/7 its probably not as noticeable because you don't get the frequent heating/cooling you'd see on a device that gets power cycled often. Nothing a repaste job wont fix.
- vincnetas 4y agois it theoretically possible to have cooling paste be jelly like? so it just returns to previous position after cooling down? or its just to irrelevat problem to invest in it?
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- zbrozek 4y agoThe datasheet[0] shows the device moving 8.5 watts at 85 Celsius. That doesn't sound like it's going to make laptop throttling a thing of the past. Maybe I'm not understanding something. [0] https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6387c57559192a648478384e/6387c57559192a85f5783955_AirJet%20Pro%20Data%20Sheet.pdf https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6387c57559192a648478384e/638...
- easygenes 4y agoThat’s for a single AirJet. They suggest using 3 of them for a 15” notebook.[1] That is enough for most ultrathins. 1: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6387c57559192a648478384e/6387c57559192a13fe783954_AirJet%2028W%20Case%20Study.pdf https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6387c57559192a648478384e/638...
- zbrozek 4y agoSo the stack is CPU, heat spreader, array of these products? It'd be nice if the datasheet showed performance curves across temperature and pressure as well.
- winrid 4y agoThe examples I've seen don't use a heat spreader, interestingly. A video demo had the CEO saying they depend on the velocity of the air to remove the heat quickly, so no heatsink required.
- raihansaputra 4y agoIt’s a bit confusing but from a YT video it seems the device still need a coldplate + heatpipe, and the airjet is stuck on the heatpipes themselves replacing cooling fins. The airjet itself blasts the air into it’s own internal coldplate from what I understand.
- noisy_boy 4y agoThat is correct - in response to the question about whether heatpipes could be removed, the CEO mentioned that their requirement is uniform distribution of heat on the copper plating on the airjet and putting it on the heatpipe helps achieve that so their plan is to stick it on the heatpipes.
- dpacmittal 4y agoI think they're using piezoelectric cooling - https://youtu.be/Rn6qVv9HzHc https://youtu.be/Rn6qVv9HzHc
- nvalis 4y agoIn the CES video [0] they are stating it's MEMS. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E
- dangero 4y agoHow does dust not get jammed in that slit?
- tdboorman 4y agoThey talk about back pressure in this interview and basically say that it can produce enough pressure to pull air through a filter that would keep dust out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxTnGEAx3E
- optionalsquid 4y agoDumb question, but wouldn't the filter just end up getting clogged instead?
- kedihacker 4y agoFirst bigger surface area two you can run it backwards each time you power it on and the filter increases time between automatic cleaning and helps with dusty environments.
- NBJack 4y agoCan you clarify? I'm not sure this addresses the parent poster's concerns. To add, I'm wondering about the susceptibility of such a system to the use of things like compressed air. High-velocity particulate + tiny spaces = potential for jamming/destruction of the components?
- Brusco_RF 4y agoI don't think this solid state fan can be run backwards, if I'm understanding how it works correctly
- vivegi 4y agoVery cool. (Pun unintended)
- dmead 4y agothis seems like it might be interesting for cooling telescope optics?
- avereveard 4y agoIs there any data on how long this last? Having a perfectly working laptop die because some membrane lose elasticity would suck
- Tade0 4y agoWorst that will happen nowadays is that it would throttle heavily. I broke the fans in my laptop through overzealous cleaning and when I turned them off completely to not hear the rattling the laptop generally still worked - just forget about any heavy tasks. CPU: AMD 4800HS.
- rkagerer 4y ago"The first ever solid state thermal solution" Peltier coolers have been around a while, but aren't very efficient. How's this compare?
- mort96 4y agoAre those really considered active cooling? A pettier element just moves heat from one side of a plate to another, right? You still need to dissipate the heat on the hot side.
- mort96 4y agoDamn it, my phone auto-"corrected" peltier to pettier and I didn't notice before now, after the edit window. Why is phone autocorrect still so broken?
- lsaferite 4y agoIt's _actively_ moving heat from one location to another. What you do with that heat at the other location is another matter.
- SG- 4y agoThe only red flag being set off for me is how has Apple, Intel or AMD not bought these guys up already?
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- sschueller 4y agoIf you have the patent on this tech and the ability to manufacture them in bulk why would you sell? There is a huge potential here and selling it to one of the big guys to just then sit on a few billion at home seems quite a boring life. Apple can easily license or buy from them which is what they do with other tech. Apple does not make OLED panels themselves nor do most that use OLED panels in their products.
- yetihehe 4y ago> selling it to one of the big guys to just then sit on a few billion at home seems quite a boring life. Depends for who. If you are inventor, you can sell your invention and then go on working on your next invention without worrying about cash instead of trying to be a businessman doing business.
- amelius 4y ago"Hey Apple, you can have AirJet in your laptops, but we want 30% of your revenue otherwise we sell to Intel"
- josuepeq 4y agoI am thinking of all the things that this could change, but all I can think about is my loud 8” ultraportable Chuwi Minibook, with a Intel Core m3-8100Y, and how much I hate that fan. Never mind that, this might be what’s needed to create a 1” thick Core i9-xx900HX 8” desktop replacement class UMPC that will most certainly be a worthy replacement, assuming they certify it with thunderbolt 4.
- sofixa 4y ago> my loud 8” ultraportable Chuwi Minibook, with a Intel Core m3-8100Y, and how much I hate that fan. Isn't it possible to open it up and replace the fan with a Noctua?
- wildrhythms 4y agoIt's a minibook and I don't think Noctua sells fans tiny enough to fit those unique cooling assemblies.
- turtleyacht 4y agoOne of Noctua's products is a giant, passively cooled CPU heatsink. It juts out of the case. They were kind enough to ship the backplate to my motherboard, even though that should have come with the board originally. I'm glad I could find something that might help me run a quieter home server. Really appreciate their support.
- vijaybritto 4y agoTheir marketing is good and i hope the tech grows to pro laptops and desktops. But the marketing needs to be taught a bit of math. In the 'how airjet works' video, they say a 50W processor is throttled to 10W and airjet brings it up to 20W so it's a 100% performance improvement for the processor. Its more like the processor is only 60% worse and not 70% worse
- KaiserPro 4y agoI'd be interested to see how shock proof they are, along with how well they stand up to fatigue. I'm assuming they are silicon flappy-bits, which tend to be fairly hard but fragile. However there are watch people using silicon as balance replacement, so perhaps its more robust than I thought.
- daneel_w 4y agoI remember seeing the precursor to this some 10-12 years ago. Can't recall if it was the same company or not. The prototype looked like a block of very densely packed sheets of carbon fiber - imagine a typical car radiator but with finer and thinner fins made of some black plastic-like material - and once energized the sheets would oscillate in a way such that air got sucked through the block at impressive speeds. The prototype wasn't particularly silent. On the whole this idea doesn't seem like it's going to do much for laptops now that Arm is entering the scene. Maybe it'll make a good solution for noisy graphics cards.
- shireboy 4y agoIf I understand the mechanism, LTT did a video on similar albeit larger more expensive version of these a few months back. Had some drawbacks IIRC but maybe the chip design addresses that. https://youtu.be/NY-gA_zA_os https://youtu.be/NY-gA_zA_os
- PartiallyTyped 4y agoIt's not a piezo according to other commenters.
- teknopaul 4y agoHow does 1 watt compare to fans? Battery life is usually a priority over noise.
- willcipriano 4y agoA case fan is around a watt[0] (0.6 - 6 depending on size and rpm) so I imagine it's in the ballpark, might even be a improvement. [0]https://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-components.html https://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-compo...
- fortysixdegrees 4y agoI design low volume specialist equipment, and would love to try these. Problem is I can't even talk to manufacturers at my volumes, and this probably won't be on Digi-Key/mouser/RS etc for years. If I were them I would get these out to us little guys through those distributors so more engineers in general are familiar with them.