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Earlier this year, NEC announced the “world’s first” liquid cooled smartphone. Forget about pumps and radiators, this is a phone we’re talking about; it uses heat pipe technology. The principle is really simple to understand. Fill a metal tube up with a liquid, usually a mix of water and ethanol. Attach one end of it to something hot, like a CPU, and the other end to something cool. When the CPU gets hot, the warm liquid travels towards the cool element thanks to entropy, and then the cool liquid comes to do its job.
According to DigiTimes, tier one smartphone brands are investigating this technolog and might introduce it in their products as early as Q4 of this year. What does “tier one” mean? Companies like Apple and Samsung, the big boys.
Personally, I’d rather have chip companies make more power efficient chips than to see smartphone makers start adopting exotic cooling solutions. What’s next, a phone with an exhaust vent? We’ll see 20 nanometer chips come out during the first half of 2014, so here’s hoping they’ll help alleviate any heating issues.
