The Frore Systems Airjet Mini and Airjet Pro are thin (2.8mm) active cooling chips that silently draw cool air in from the top before pushing it out the sides. They are intended to replace conventional fan-based cooling systems in laptops and ultrabooks or be incorporated into VR headsets and smartphones for enhanced cooling.
The small membranes that make up the Airjet chips vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies to create a flow of air that enters through inlet vents on top and is turned into high-velocity pulsing jets that exit from one side of the chip. This technique can cool processors in various electronic devices.
Because it enables slimmer designs, the AirJet module is actually mounted atop copper pipes rather than being directly on the processor in ultrabooks. According to the manufacturer, the AirJet Mini and Pro modules outperform cooling fans because they produce a back pressure up to 1750 Pa, which is significantly more than the 195 Pa generated by a standard laptop fan, and because they run quietly at 21 dBA as opposed to fans’ 42 dBA noise level. The larger Pro models can dissipate up to 10 Watts of heat, whilst the Mini can only dissipate up to 5 Watts.
Modern processors include turbo or peak performance modes, which can only continue for a short time due to thermal restrictions, so the solution could result in improved performance in applications with limited space. It is feasible to extend that duration or, in the case of Arm CPUs, operate constantly at peak performance with a solid-state cooling system, resulting in considerable performance gains. With four AirJet Mini modules fitted to a vapor chamber and a passively cooled 11.3mm thick Arm netbook, Frore Systems claims to have nearly doubled the performance because the CPU could run at 3.5 GHz constantly rather than dropping to 1.8 GHz.
The performance was also enhanced by doing the same with three AirJet Pro modules and an Intel-based laptop with a fan cooling system, however, the system was not always able to operate at Turbo speeds.
Although the company hasn’t released a price, it appears that the chips will initially only be used in higher-end items. Actively cooled solutions might be used for systems with up to 28W processors, as well as being implemented into ultrathin designs for improved performance, but it might not be found in thicker fanless designs due to the additional power consumption and costs.
