Intel on Notebook Cooling Jet Engine Style – Sort of

News
By Aaron Heibert
published

Is your notebook getting too warm for your legs? Intel is actively trying to sooth the burns with its new cooling technology that closely resembles the way real jet engines are kept cool on the outside.

Intel has been hard at work looking into the ever increasing problem of warm legs with something called ‘Laminar Flow’. Laminar Flow occurs when a fluid or gas/air flows in parallel layers, causing a non turbulent way of directing heat and/or hot air away from a surface or area.

Mooly Eden, head of Intel Mobile Platforms Group, at this week’s Intel developer forum in Taiwan, showed an animation of a jet engine to prove his point about laminar flow. The inside of a jet engine can reach upwards of 1,000 degrees centigrade – not that your notebook will ever reach these temperatures. However, the walls of a jet engine need to be kept cool as they are joined to the wing of the aircraft where the fuel is normally stored – laminar flow is used in keeping things cool.

Intel demonstrated application of laminar flow technology to move the heat off of a notebooks skin. “We are licensing it to our customers so they can keep making thinner and thinner laptops”, quoting Eden.

Eden also touched a little about Calpella, the next-gen mobile platform that will mark Nehalem’s mobile debut in the second half of 2009 – going on about how Calpella will incorporate processors with integrated graphics cores. He also added that cores in Nehalem chips can be dynamically shut off to conserve power and run cooler.

Aaron Heibert
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • zodiacfml
    non-sense. this meant using a metal sheet as base of a laptop, which probably is aluminum. not a fan of Apple, too bad they got first to it.
    Reply
  • frozenlead
    "Is your notebook getting too warm for your legs?"

    Why, no, my Sager is able to keep itself very cool - no thermal impact on the exterior case :)
    But thanks for asking!
    Reply
  • kelfen
    This sounds interesting idea, my legs get hot after 2hr ish :/
    Reply
  • my legs only get hot after a lap dance, or two
    Reply
  • scook9
    isn't this nothing new? could have sworn this is what heat pipes have been doing for years.....they just flattened it out.
    Reply
  • First year, undergraduate heat transfer class: turbulent flow is desired over laminar flow for absorbing energy off surfaces. Look it up, get educated.

    What the author is trying to convey is that impingement cooling is being developed for chip cooling.
    Reply
  • " However, the walls of a jet engine need to be kept cool as they are joined to the wing of the aircraft where the fuel is normally stored – laminar flow is used in keeping things cool."

    The "walls" of most current type jet engines are in no threat of getting very "hot" what with 90% of the thrust being developed by Bypass air rushing past a suspended core. You bet your bottom dollar that's it's 1000deg in the can, but with engines developing 35k-100k of thrust on modern bypass engines cooling takes care of itself *especially @ 35,000 feet at -60*. What I am trying to say is that "Thrust the byproduct of the work of the engine is used to keep the outside of the core cool...not laminar flow per se', Also the flow past the core is not really laminar, as there is too much parasitic drag and form drag, also don't forget the eddies created by the movement of the blades themselves....though tip drag is kept in check by the engine shroud itself. So what I am trying to say is that it's like they thought they would find the coolest term....find examples in current technology and then try to sell the concept with it. It's cheesy. On the other hand, a Laminar flow Wing or Planform is a far better example of Laminar flow in fluid dynamics. Relating it to engines while technicaly true is kinda like trying to make the Egg fit in the goose.
    Reply