AI

GenAI creates heat, even on smartphones, but xMEMS has an answer

Hot data centers get all the attention with GenAI processing heating up chips on server racks, but there is also the problem of scorching smartphones, which are expected to grow increasingly hotter as AI compute spreads to the hands and fingers of humans.

To help keep smartphones and tablets cooler, xMEMS Labs has introduced a tiny cooling chip with an actual solid state micro-cooling fan inside. Calling it the xMEMS XMC-2400 μCooling chip, it is designed as a solid-state chip that is 1mm thin and just 9.26 x 7.6 x 1.08 mm and weighing 150 milligrams.  That makes it nearly half the size and weight of non-silicon-based active cooling technologies on the market.

Solid state is designed to make the chip vibration free and reportedly silent.  The chip arrives at a “critical time in mobile computing,” said Joseph Jiang, xMEMS CEO, in a statement. “Thermal management in ultramobile devices, which are beginning to run even more processor-intensive AI applications, is a massive challenge.”

He said the XMC-2400 is designed to actively cool the smallest handheld form factors to enable AI-ready devices.

The XMC-2400 is expected to sample to customers  in Q1 2025 and will be demonstrated at events in Shenzhen and Taipei in September.

The company recently introduced the xMEMS Cypress micro speaker for ANC in-ear wireless earbuds, set to go into production in Q2 2025.

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