Apple Hints At Future Liquid-Cooled Laptops

Lumenary7204 writes "According to the Register, Apple recently received US Patent Application No. 20080291629 for a 'liquid-cooled portable computer.' The filing describes a system where a 'pump ... coupled to the heat pipe is configured to circulate the liquid coolant through the heat pipe.' All claims of obviousness aside (after all, PC enthusiasts have been using liquid and phase-change cooling for years), the existence of the patent application seems to indicate that laptop manufacturers are in agreement with physicists and engineers who say we are running up against the practical limits of air-cooling such compact pieces of equipment."

Comments

This won't fly.

[retech]

Literally, it won't fly. Getting one on an plane would be impossible anywhere in north America.

Re:This won't fly.

[RMH101]

They've had it on Mac Pros for years.
What could possibly go wrong?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1464395&tstart=990

It's another built-in-defect waiting to happen, along with the dodgy Nvidia GPUs in Macbook Pros, those heat-deaths of HDDs in Macbooks etc...

Re:This won't fly.

[Creepy]

There are liquid coolers now being sold that are fully sealed rather than sealed using gaskets, and the potential for a leak with such systems is much smaller than traditional gasket coolers, however, there is usually no way to inspect, clean, or add coolant to these (they would need to be replaced).

Looking at the patent, I see two differences to traditional liquid cooling that could be the entire basis of the patent. Claim 16: metal particles in the coolant, and Claim 19: a cold plate (which could mean many things, even wild solutions like a miniature Sterling Engine, though I would think it's something simple).

Here's my breakdown of the patent, at least to my understanding:

Claim 1 - this is specific to a computing system with liquid cooling of the power source.

Claim 2 - the IC included in the power source contains a processor. This makes me think the IC is a controller for the pump because the claim is for the power source, not the laptop itself.

Claim 3-11 specifics about pump and coolants

Claim 12 - used in a laptop

Claim 13 - 15 - dual phase (typical phase change coolant from liquid to gas and back)

Claim 16 - metal particles in the coolant to increase thermal transfer.

Claim 17 - describes pump activity

Claim 18 - describes a heatsink

Claim 19 - a cold plate for increased thermal transfer

Claim 20 - describes the lithography size of the laptop (how small the wires are).

Claim 21 - describes using liquid cooling on the laptop itself.

Bad terminology

[nog_lorp]

They should double check their terminology. Heat pipes are defined to be a closed system whereby the working fluid circulates by convection and capillary action.

"Heat pipes contain no mechanical moving parts..."

Re:A note on semantics

[MiKM]

Possibly. The article doesn't mention where the heat exchange takes place, but one of the diagrams seems to suggest that it's behind the display. Maybe somebody who reads Japanese could translate.

Re:A note on semantics

[dave420]

Yup.

Enthusiasts?

[MacBoy]

Enthusiasts have been using liquid cooling for years? Apple has also been using Liquid cooling for years! The two dual PowerPC G5's threw so much heat that they had no choice really. And it's not the first actively cooled system Apple has made. Fourteen years ago the PowerMac 8100/110 had a 110 MHz PowerPC 601 with a Peltier-Junction (thermoelectric) cooler.