1. Field
The present invention relates to the field of heat management of computing devices, and in particular the cooling of heat generating components and exterior walls of mobile computing devices.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Heat management can be critical in many applications. Excessive heat can cause damage to or degrade the performance of mechanical, chemical, electric, and other types of devices. Heat management becomes more critical as technology advances and newer devices continue to become smaller and more complex, and as a result run at higher power levels and/or power densities.
Modern electronic circuits, because of their high density and small size, often generate a substantial amount of heat. Complex integrated circuits (ICs), especially microprocessors, generate so much heat that they are often unable to operate without some sort of cooling system. Further, even if an IC is able to operate, excess heat can degrade an IC's performance and can adversely affect its reliability over time. Inadequate cooling can cause problems in central processing units (CPUs) used in personal computers (PCs), which can result in system crashes, lockups, surprise reboots, and other errors. The risk of such problems can become especially acute in the tight confines found inside mobile computers and other portable computing and electronic devices.
As the processing powers of mobile computing devices continue to increase, the temperatures of the outer walls of the mobile computing devices will continue to rise to unacceptable levels. The temperatures are becoming the highest within the regions of the memory, central processing unit (CPU), chipset and voltage regulator (VR). To overcome the increase of heat in these locations, vents have been placed in strategic locations to reduce the temperatures.
Prior methods for dealing with such cooling problems have included using simple vent systems in the outer walls of a mobile device. But, as the amount of cooling air available within mobile computing devices is reduced as the mobile devices are scaled down, the vent system becomes less and less efficient.