Apple Working On A Liquid-Cooled iPhone To Boost Power Efficiency [DigiTimes]

Taiwanese publication DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is looking to adopt ultra-thin heat pipes for iPhones, in order to boost their power efficiency. Other leading smartphone makers such as Samsung and HTC, are also showing interest in developing liquid-cooled smartphones and are expected to release such models by the end of 2013, notes the source.

According to anonymous sources inside cooling module players, the conventional graphite plus foil cooling method is no longer able to efficiently dissipate enough heat in modern smartphones. With 4G LTE becoming a more common transmission specification for latest smartphones, the heat problem is only expected to become worse. At present, major cooling module players who are developing 0.6mm heat pipes include Japan-based Furukawa Electric, Taiwan-based Chaun-Choung Technology, Auras and TaiSol Electronics.

“NEC has just recently released a new smartphone, Medias X06E, using a heat pipe. The smartphone adopts a 4.7-inch 1,280 by 720 OLED display, a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 4 processor and Android operating system, targeting mainly female consumers.

The heat pipe in NEC’s smartphone has a diameter of only 0.6mm, far smaller than ultrabook heat pipes’ 1-1.2mm, allowing the heat pipe to fit into smartphones’ limited space.”

The source however points out that since the heat pipes only have a yield rate of 30%, cooling module players players are working hard to ramp up their production.