Smartphones are becoming more powerful day by day. And in electronics “with great power comes great heat“. This heat needs to be dissipated to keep the performance of the processor at its peak. This is the part where liquid cooling comes in but how does liquid cooling technology works in phones?
Previously normal air cooling would do the trick. But as Smartphones today have become very powerful it has changed. Smartphones are so powerful nowadays that you can even compare them with full desktop PCs of a few years ago. With high performing CPUs and GPUs there has started a separate mobile gaming industry. And to keep up with that phone manufacturers have also started making phones with the sole purpose of Gaming with features like liquid cooling technology in phones.
Problems due to Heat
Modern CPUs and GPUs are designed to work under certain temperatures. Now due to heavy tasks like gaming temperature of CPU and GPU starts rising. As too much heat is dangerous for these components they have a safety setup built-in. So whenever temperatures rise above a set limit these components (CPU, GPU) start underperforming (to reduce temperatures) which is also known as thermal throttling. This thermal throttling causes frame drops and lag in gaming.
As you might already know this problem of heat generation and dissipation is not new as it already exists with high powered Gaming Computers. And the solution to this is external cooling. Which reduces temperatures and prevents thermal throttling from happening. This is done using tubes filled with liquid coolants. And with the help of an external pump liquid in these tubes is circulated from CPUs and GPUs to the radiator. But due to very limited space, liquid cooling technology in smartphones is very difficult.
Cooling Technologies in Smartphones
To solve this problem of heat dissipation in smartphones, manufacturers are trying various tricks. And liquid cooling being one of them, but it’s not new. Samsung started using a kind of liquid cooling in Galaxy S7 and since then almost every flagship phone from Samsung has liquid cooling in it. Other manufacturers are also using technologies like this it was used in Razor Phone, Asus ROG Phone, Xiaomi Black Shark, Nubia Red Magic, Pocco F1 and various other.
From using copper heat tubes to copper heating pads. Smartphone manufacturers are trying various tricks to stop thermal throttling.
How vapor chamber cooling works in Galaxy Note 10+
Let’s discuss cooling technology used in Samsung Galaxy Note 10+. Samsung has improved a lot since it started using liquid cooling technology in their phone galaxy S7. From using multiple copper tubes to now using a thin copper pad which Samsung calls as vapor chamber. This pad is made of copper as copper is a great conductor of heat.
This pad is hollow from inside although being very thin that is around 1 mm. Containing a liquid that starts vaporizing when the processor starts to heat and travel to another side inside the pad where the temperature is lower and gets condensed. This chamber also contains a layer of fabric through which liquid is absorbed and brought back to the heated side. This process continues the circulation of liquid and does the transfer of heat. And also as the pad has a larger area it increases surface area resulting in better heat dissipation. This whole system works to cool CPU and prevent thermal throttling.
Is Liquid cooling technology in phones effective
Yes it does improves a lot and hence nowadays almost all gaming phones have some kind of liquid cooling inside. It’s a great technology and does change the gaming performance of smartphones by a significant amount. And helps in reducing thermal throttling a lot. Although this doesn’t mean that these smartphones will not heat. Instead, when doing intensive tasks like gaming phones do feel warm as heat from the processor dissipates through the back of the phone. But as it reduces thermal throttling its good to have liquid cooling technology in smartphones.
Does your device still heats, then you can check out these methods to reduce phone heating. And do you want to know if 64 MP on smartphones camera really works or is just a marketing strategy click here.