The American company Frore Systems claims that the performance of laptops, for example, can be significantly increased with an active “cooling chip”. They should replace the normal fans and they will work fine so CPU throttling is less or less of an issue.

for this purpose Freer systems It has developed the so-called AirJet, which the company describes as a first Solid state thermal solution. The company describes its cooling solution as a chip, but it’s not an ordinary chip with actual computing power. Foil manufacturing methods are used in the manufacture of aeroplanes. In terms of size and shape, it looks like a slightly larger processor.

The thickness of the product is 2.8 mm, so it does not take up much space, and it should also be much quieter than ordinary fans; Frore Systems speaks at 21 to 24 decibels. The AirJet is placed over the actual chip or processor that needs cooling. It works by vibrating diaphragms with ultrasonic frequencies, and sensors that measure temperature allow the frequency to be tuned. These vibrating diaphragms ensure air is sucked in at the top. The pulsating air currents then extract the heat from the small heat spreaders at the bottom.

Hot air exits on the side and the airflow is strong enough to exit the device through separate vents in the laptop. AirJets generate a pressure of 1750Pa, which is much higher than ordinary cooling solutions such as fans. According to the company, this means that the air inlets at the bottom of the laptop can be covered with filter material, so that no more or less dust enters the laptop. In theory, this would mean that the number of air inlets could be limited.

The first generation AirJets are for laptops, tablets and handheld game consoles. Later and smaller versions in particular should be suitable for use in smartphones, virtual reality glasses and data centers. There will be two products: the AirJet Mini and the Airjet Pro. The Mini is placed in very thin tablets or laptops that are passively cooled and quickly suffer from throttling. In turn, the Pro is intended to be a quiet and efficient alternative to more powerful, effectively cooled laptops. The Mini weighs 11g and measures 27.5 x 41.5mm, while the Pro weighs 22g and measures 31.5 x 71.5mm. It seems that the consumption of the two products is rather high: 1 watt for the mini and 1.75 watts for the pro. Knowing that many AirJets must be installed for each product, this consumption can increase.

Multiple copies can be used; Frore Systems gives the example where four AirJet Minis are attached to a vapor chamber and then used in an ultra-thin 13-inch passively cooled laptop 11.3 mm thick. In the case of the laptop, the company claims four AirJet Minis result in a whopping 10W of active cooling. On top of that, there’s another 10 watts of passive cooling that’s inherent in a laptop. In short, the Thermal limit It goes from 10W to 20W and AirJets emit a sound pressure of 27dB. According to Frore, this means that the processor won’t have to downsize from 3.5GHz to 1.8GHz in terms of performance; The processor can continue to run without throttling.

Frore also illustrates the scenario of a larger 15-inch laptop being actively cooled; The thermal limit ranges from 18 to 28 watts based on the three AirJet pros installed in the laptop. According to the company, there will be a noise level of 42 decibels. While using AirJets would reduce that to 29dB, while still increasing the thermal limit, Frore states that without the AirJets scenario, the processor would soon move from 4.8GHz to 1.4GHz, whereas with AirJets it would be limited to throttling up to 2.1GHz. .

Frore Systems is working on this technology with Intel. The latter wants to be used in future Intel Evo laptops. The founders of the company are Seshu Madhavapeddy and Surya Ganti. Madhavapeddy previously worked in the smartphone division of Texas Instruments and Ganti previously worked for General Electric as a researcher where his responsibilities included the development of nanostructured surfaces. The two met at Qualcomm where they worked together on the company’s ultrasonic fingerprint scanning technology. Qualcomm Ventures has already invested $100 million in Frore.