In the public impression, lithography machines seem to be very high-end, and they are always bound to chip production.
After all, we haven’t heard of anything else being stuck in the lithography machine, have we?
But to put it bluntly, a lithography machine is actually a very precise engraving machine: since it can engrave chips, it can also engrave other things.
For example, the following one… Uh, radiator.
At this year’s CES show, a company called Frore Systems exhibited their “epoch-making” Airjet radiator.
Next, I will use a lot of space to tell you about this gadget-not an advertisement, but it is really too hanging…
This guy looks like an unremarkable copper vapor chamber, but it’s really a radiator with a “fan” that was even produced using a photolithography machine!
Wow, awesome! It is very in line with my imagination of future technology!
But how?
The whole story has to start with the electric man’s thing in the lighter – the piezoelectric crystal.
This kind of crystal can convert deformation and voltage into each other: when it is squeezed and its shape changes, a voltage will be generated; conversely, when an external voltage is applied to the piezoelectric crystal, it will generate deformation.
With this property, we can electrify it and make the sheet piezoelectric crystal vibrate under the reciprocating voltage drive to make a piezoelectric fan.
But, if a normal-sized piezo fan is useful, it’s not useless:
The air volume is small, the wind speed is low, and it even needs to be completely empty around to blow a little wind.
Except for occasions where the motor cannot be used and maintenance needs to be avoided, this piezoelectric fan is basically useless.
However, after applying a layer of “lithography machine buff”, everything is completely different.Frore Systems used a lithography machine to carve hundreds of tiny piezoelectric fans on a whole piece of material, as well as supporting circuits and air ducts.
Working concept diagram of each piezo fan unit
Since the internal details of Airjet are still commercial secrets, Tony has not been able to get exclusive information, so he can only share with you the final effect:
The characteristics of ultra-low power consumption and maintenance-free piezoelectric fans have been retained, but the wind speed and air volume have been greatly improved.
According to Forre Systems itself, the wind speed can reach 200km/h.
This wind speed is comparable to the recent typhoons.
The strong wind is in full contact with the heat sink, and under the same heat dissipation area, it can produce up to five times the heat dissipation effect of traditional heat sinks.
According to the manufacturer’s demonstration, as long as three pieces of Airjet Mini can suppress a 15-watt thin and light notebook, the performance even surpasses the original fan.
And because there are no traditional mechanical components, the entire heat dissipation system can be completely maintenance-free; and the dust filter at the air inlet also avoids the trouble of cleaning dust.
In an era where the performance of electronic products is trapped by heat dissipation, Airjet can be called a heat dissipation revolution.
In tight spaces, we finally have a reliable and portable way to dissipate heat:
It does not need a turbofan that is bulky, very easy to accumulate dust, and makes noise; it does not need to be inconvenient, and it also does not need the water cooling of the “leaky crematorium”;Not to mention the chicken ribs of semiconductor heat dissipation, how much heat is dissipated, and how much extra heat dissipation power consumption is required.
What’s even more outrageous is that this radiator has no active macroscopic mechanical structure, and at the same time, the air intake is through the dust-proof filter paper, which completely avoids the problems of disassembly, cleaning and maintenance.
Tony predicts that as long as it can be rolled out, there will soon be thin and light notebooks and handhelds with stronger performance and thinner.
Especially in handhelds where heat dissipation is more urgent, Tony has already begun to look forward to the future:
We tested ASUS’s new Ally handheld a while ago, and the AMD Z1 Extreme processor in it performed quite well at 15 watts.
But in order to dissipate the heat, the space occupied by its set of turbo cooling can be said to be comparable to that of batteries.
Think about it, if you can remove the fan and replace it with a thinner Airjet, how much more weight and space can be saved to improve battery life?
In fact, using lithography and other chip processing techniques to buff traditional mechanical components is not a new idea.
This kind of miniaturized machinery has a special name: microelectromechanical system (MEMS).
This industry is very mature, even so mature that there are a lot of similar miniature machines in the mobile phone you are using to read now.
MEMS microphones and speakers, gravity sensors to automatically rotate the screen, gyroscopes and accelerometers to detect movement and vibration, and a wireless transmission and reception system…
These functions, which used to require a large structure, can now be miniaturized by using precision processing technologies such as lithography, and even packaged into a chip-like form.
MEMS gyroscope
It can be said that without MEMS, a series of modern smart devices could not have been born at all.
mechanical gyroscope
Fortunately, unlike advanced chips, we are not lagging behind in the field of MEMS, and we can even say that we are flourishing.
According to market data, whether in terms of variety or industry chain, there are domestic manufacturers everywhere in the entire MEMS industry.
Among them, Geerwei and AAC Technologies can even rank among the top 20 global MEMS companies in terms of revenue in 2021.
This time, the birth of Airjet heralds the arrival of an era of imaginative explosion for the entire MEMS industry.
In the past, who could have imagined such an outrageous craft as “lithography machine carving fan”?
But now, it has become a reality, and even turned into a profitable product.
In the future, there will inevitably be more strange MEMS products, and various smart devices around us may also take another step forward.