AI data centers will start using xMEMS Labs’ tiny, all-silicon, active fan-on-a-chip cooling solution, µCooling, initially designed for smartphones and mobile devices.
According to GamesBeat, this technology will be deployed in small high-performance optical transceiver DSPs with a maximum TDP of 18W or higher. The tiny cooling chip can deliver up to 5 watts of localized cooling, and its small size and lack of moving parts mean it can be reliably deployed in hard-to-reach places and require no maintenance at all.
Although the amount of heat these fans remove might seem small, it is still significant enough to reduce DSP temperatures by 15%. This decreases the thermal load on the system, allowing it to operate faster for much longer, reduce errors, and increase its service life. xMEMS Labs also isolated the airflow channel from the transceiver’s optical and core electronic components. This ensures that any dust or contaminant picked up by its micro fan will have no way to interfere with the DSP’s operation.
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“As data center interconnect demands scale rapidly with AI workloads, thermal bottlenecks are emerging at the component level — especially in optical modules that are sealed, power-dense, and space-constrained,” xMEMS Labs Marketing VP Mike Housholder said in a statement. “µCooling is uniquely positioned to solve this by providing true in-module active cooling with no compromise to optics or form factor.”
xMEMS Labs might be the first to deploy a micro cooling solution in an AI data center, but it isn’t the only one working on an extremely compact fan with few or no moving parts. Frore System has been working on its solid-state cooling chip since 2022, which uses piezoelectric vibrations to drive airflow, similar to xMEMS Labs' µCooling chip. It has even introduced slimmer versions called the AirJet Mini Slim and applied them to an SSD, which doubled its performance. On the other hand, Ventivia is taking a different approach with its Ionic Cooling Engine, which uses an electric field to ionize air particles and force them to flow in one direction, creating cooling.
As chips and devices become smaller and more power-dense, these tiny cooling solutions will be crucial for helping our tech keep its cool. And while we might not yet see these fans in phones and laptops this year, they’re slowly coming online in different components that most people may never see.
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