One of the top problems facing device manufacturers today is overheating hardware. The chips inside PCs generate heat, which — when allowed to build up — majorly hurts performance. Cooling is less of a challenge when space isn’t at a premium. But as the marketplace pushes for ever-thinner notebooks and so-called ultraportables, manufacturers are being faced with a choice: compromise on design or on raw processing power.
Seshu Madhavapeddy and Surya Ganti hope to present a third option with hardware they’ve developed at their four-year-old startup, Frore Systems. Called AirJet and weighing in at just 11 grams on the low end, the microelectromechanical chip can supposedly deliver improved thermal performance by actively removing heat from processors.
“Until now, manufacturers have used antiquated thermal solutions like mechanical fans in notebooks, tablets and other consumer devices to remove heat....
