“MacNN was first to break the news earlier this week concerning a newly proposed notebook cooling system patent form Apple and today, the US Patent & Trademark Office has revealed that Apple is also contemplating a secondary approach to cooling systems for notebooks,” MacNN reports.
This newly-revealed “approach involves the use of a hybrid diamond heat spreader,” MacNN reports.
“According to the documentation, Apple has been hard at work on this issue since early 2007… In some embodiments, the documentation reveals that the heat spreader includes an allotrope of carbon having an approximately face-centered-cubic crystal structure, such as single-crystal or polycrystalline diamond,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
I’ve always liked using my PowerBook on a cold winter day.
And some people think they are pricey now!
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wow! Diamonds on the soles of my MacBook. People say I’m crazy.
But they will be a girl’s best friend
In addition to HD, RAM, chip you’ll then be able to choose the carats. Don’t tell the wife!!!!
What’s with everything being “hybrid” today?
What’s Apple gonna do next? Streamline their cases to have a low wind-drag coefficient?
I love that they research and think of such things. At Dell, I imagine it goes something like this:
Hey Gomer, this thing here is garsh darn hot!
— Well make it bigger. Or add a piece a tube or somethin’ to it, ya’ idjut! Sheesh, if you tweren’t my brother/cousin/uncle, I’d fire you, guy!
It’s just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes.
” What’s with everything being “hybrid” today? “
We even elected a Hybid President
I like it. Apple already is a boutique computer. Why not add diamonds to the mix. Perfect for these tough economic times. <cynical smile.> But really, Apple innovated out of their personal recession, They will innovate through this global one as well.
Well it’s a bout time. My MBP 17″ is heating like crazy. Impossible to touch its bottom. And I tried everything to cool it off!
Industrial diamonds (i.e., not the pretty type that involve artistry in cutting) are not expensive. In fact, diamonds are as common as dirt, they are artificially inflated by market forces – particularly those used in jewelry.
@ R:
ROTFLMAO. Best post I’ve read in a long time…
@ loloontheair:
Try the Zefyr Pro. Its sleek, has a heat sink as well as fans. I use it with my new (unibody) 15″ MBP which gets pretty warm when I’m using the faster graphics card and using applications that take alot of processing power (FCP2).
http://www.moshimonde.com/zefyr_pro.htm
@passing fad
“What’s Apple gonna do next? Streamline their cases to have a low wind-drag coefficient?”
You mean the MacBook Air?
I doubt there is much those Allotropes can’t do. Amazing technology! I remember when I was kidnapped by one of their saucers and held for days while they examined my gizzard……
Diamond cooling? BLING!!
Got one right! I posted on Dec 2:
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Better solution is to reduce power consumption and, thus, thermal dissipation. That approach also improves battery life, which is a big plus.
Liquid cooling in a portable computer seems like a bad idea to me – more shock loads and vibrations that might induce leaks. Also, the addition of a pump will draw more battery power.
A true (passive) heat pipe will function without a pump, which would be a step in the right direction. Integrated cooling paths in the ICs would be a more elegant approach to conductive/convective cooling. I seem to recall some work on diamond thermal pipes in silicon-based ICs in the past.
———–
Passive thermal is the way to go, and diamond is a terrific thermal conductor.
Without examining the patent docs, I’ll wager this is probably not using diamonds as much as it’s an application of vapor deposition of a diamond film.
There’s a lot of work going on in this area, Intel’s experimented with this as a method of building chip substrates, also for diamond’s thermal properties.