If you’ve been keeping an eye on the cooling and thermal solutions space recently, you might have noticed a significant shift in the last year. A new tech is emerging that could eventually replace traditional cooling fans, working in tandem with vapor chambers (check my previous posts for more on that) and heat pipes. The key player driving this innovation is Frore Systems, which introduced its ultra-thin (just 2.5mm high) cooling solution last year at CES. Let’s dive into the tech behind it.
From what I’ve gathered through patents and videos, this technology revolves around active piezoelectric coolers. Piezoelectric materials have a unique property: they can deform or move when an alternating voltage is applied. They ingeniously leveraged this by creating a mechanical system where many tiny piezoelectric elements move in unison to generate airflow. Essentially, it’s a piezoelectric microelectromechanical (MEMS) system.
Why is this exciting? These MEMS devices can be produced using standard IC fabrication methods, meaning they can be scaled up for mass production. In terms of specs, they can generate nearly 1700Pa of static pressure, which allows them to push air through very small spaces at high speeds on an ultra-thin profile and even through filter membranes(Which means no dust in laptops!). There are already videos out there showing how laptops and phones retrofitted with these units achieve better cooling with virtually no additional noise. It’s easy to see how this could become the new standard for cooling consumer electronics.
I’m writing about this now because just last week, a new competitor entered the market: xMEMS Labs. They’ve demonstrated a 1mm-thick chip capable of cooling, likely using similar principles. However, xMEMS appears to be leveraging MEMS speaker technology to move air directly over the chip. Imagine a speaker displacing air at ultra-high frequencies beyond the audible range – this could be connected in parallel across a surface to achieve similar cooling effects. Read up more on them. I need to stop because of character count limitations.
