Patent Application
20100172095
Modern computing systems generate heat during operation. The heat may affect certain platform components of a system, and is therefore generally required to be dissipated or removed from the system. Heat generated by the computing system may be limited or reduced using various thermal management techniques and/or heat dissipation techniques. For example, heat generated by a processor may be dissipated by creating a flow of air using a fan or blower. Further, various platform-level cooling devices may be implemented in conjunction with the fan or blower to enhance heat dissipation, such as heat pipes, heat spreaders, heat sinks, vents, phase change materials or liquid-based coolants.
Traditional blowers used in portable computing systems generate a flow of air from an inlet parallel to the axis of rotation (e.g. the axial direction) to an outlet substantially perpendicular to the axis of rotation. This may be problematic in notebook computers, for example, because these traditional fans require inlet gaps above and/or below the fan housing. Because of the size constraints of a notebook computer, the cooling capacity of traditional systems is thermally limited by the size of fan that can be accommodated inside a notebook computer enclosure while allowing sufficient space for inlet gaps above and/or below the fan housing. Furthermore, the form factor of notebook computers continues to decrease in size, resulting in less available space for cooling components. Consequently, a need exists for improved cooling techniques for notebook computers.
The embodiments are generally directed to techniques designed to improve cooling in notebook and ultrathin notebook computers. Various embodiments provide techniques that include a crossflow blower that creates a side-in, side-out airflow pattern within a notebook computer enclosure. The creation of a side-in, side-out airflow pattern eliminates the need to allow for inlet gaps above and/or below traditional fan housings, which in turn allows for the use of a much larger fan. For example, a fan having an increased rotor height compared to a traditional notebook cooling fan may be used in the same system if a side-in, side-out airflow pattern is utilized. The use of a larger fan allows for improved cooling capabilities, increased system performance and improved acoustics.
For example, some embodiments may include an enclosure, a motor and a crossflow blower to generate a flow of air between a first side and a second side of the enclosure in a direction substantially perpendicular to an axis of rotation of the crossflow blower. The arrangement of the motor, the crossflow blower and other described components may be varied for any particular implementation or system. Furthermore, it should be understood that reference throughout to a notebook computer may include any type or form of mobile computing device. For example, the described embodiments may include a notebook, laptop, mini laptop, ultrathin notebook, netbook, tablet PC, PDA, mobile phone, smart phone or any other computing device in which cooling in a enclosure with limited space is desired. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Embodiments may include one or more elements. An element may comprise any structure arranged to perform certain operations. Each element may be implemented as hardware, software, or any combination thereof, as desired for a given set of design parameters or performance constraints. Although embodiments may be described with particular elements in certain arrangements by way of example, embodiments may include other combinations of elements in alternate arrangements.
It is worthy to note that any reference to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” and “in an embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.
In various embodiments, crossflow blower 106 may comprise a fan or blower arranged to create a side-in, side-out flow of air through the blower in a direction perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the blower. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Motor 108 may comprise any suitable electric motor capable of rotating crossflow blower 106 to create a flow of air in some embodiments. In various embodiments, motor 108 may comprise an AC motor, brushed DC motor or brushless DC motor. For example, motor 108 may comprise a DC motor powered by an internal or external power source of apparatus 100. In some embodiments, motor 108 may comprise a tip-drive motor or an ultrathin motor. The size, location within enclosure 101, and location with respect to crossflow blower 106 may be selected based on the size and performance constraints of a particular implementation.
In various embodiments, enclosure 101 may include a first side 102 and a second side 104. In some embodiments, a portion of the first side 102 may be recessed in a direction of the second side 104. The recessed portion 110 of the enclosure 101 may be configured to accommodate a keyboard assembly such as keyboard 111 such that the keys of keyboard 111 may be depressed below a top surface of the first side 102 of the enclosure 101. The enclosure may have a first internal height 112 between the first side 102 and the second side 104 and a second internal height 114 between the recessed portion 110 of the first side 102 and the second side 104. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
In some embodiments, a portion of the crossflow blower 106 may be positioned between the recessed portion 110 of the first side 102 and the second side 104. In this configuration, for example, the crossflow blower 106 may have an axial height that is approximately equal to the second internal height 114. Other heights may be used and still fall within the described embodiments. Furthermore, it should be understood that adequate space between the crossflow blower 106 and the internal surfaces of the enclosure 101 should be provided such that the crossflow blower 106 does not contact the internal surfaces of the enclosure 101 when it is operated. In various embodiments the surface features of the areas surrounding the crossflow blower 106 may be configured to minimize leakage and minimize drag on the crossflow blower 106.
The motor may be positioned above or below the crossflow blower 106, for example. In various embodiments, the motor 108 may be positioned between the crossflow blower 106 and the first side 102. In some embodiments, the motor 108 may have a height that is approximately equal to a difference between the first internal height 112 and the second internal height 114 or a difference between the first internal height 112 and the axial height of the crossflow blower. In this manner, the total internal height (e.g. height 112) may be fully utilized by the combination of crossflow blower 106 and motor 108.
In some embodiments, motor 108 may be positioned centrally above the axis of crossflow blower 106 and may control or spin the crossflow blower 106 to generate a flow of air 116. Furthermore, the motor 108 may be located between keyboard 111 and display 120, which may be coupled to enclosure 101 such that the display may be rotated with respect to the enclosure 101, in some embodiments. In various embodiments, a heat sink 118 or other heat dissipation component may be located downstream 116 from the crossflow blower 106 to assist with heat dissipation for the apparatus 100. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Crossflow blower assembly 200 may include a crossflow blower casing 201 having an inlet 202 and an outlet 204. In some embodiments, the inlet 202 may be larger than the outlet 204, the inlet 202 and outlet 204 may be substantially the same size, or the inlet 202 may be smaller than the outlet 204. In various embodiments, the inlet 202 may include rounded corners 212 to enhance the airflow and pressure created by crossflow blower 206. The precise arrangement of the inlet 202 and outlet 204 may be selected based on the desired pressure and flow for a particular implementation of crossflow blower casing 201. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
In various embodiments, crossflow blower 206 may include an impeller 208 with a plurality of blades. Impeller 208 may comprise a rotor configured to increase the pressure and/or flow of air in some embodiments. The blades of the impeller 208 may be any size, shape, number or configuration suitable for inducing the flow of air. In some embodiments, the plurality of blades of impeller 208 may be spaced unevenly to improve the acoustic characteristics of crossflow blower 206. In various embodiments, the number of blades may be selected to reduce resonant acoustic noise created by the crossflow blower 206 in a predefined frequency range or feathering or notching of the blades of the impeller 208 may be utilized to reduce coherent noise production. Furthermore, passive or active noise cancellation components may optionally be included along with a crossflow blower system to reduce resonant noise generated by the impeller 208 in some embodiments. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Crossflow blower 206, impeller 208 and crossflow blower casing 201 may be optimized for certain desired acoustic performance in some embodiments.
In some embodiments, the number of blades on impeller 208 may be selected to achieve desired acoustic performance.
Returning again to
Motor 214 may also be within crossflow blower casing 201 in some embodiments. Motor 214 may be the same or similar to motor 108 of
In various embodiments, the motor 214 may be positioned within a radius of the impeller 208 of the crossflow blower 206. For example, a portion or the entire radius of the motor 214 may overlap with a portion or the entire radius of the impeller 218 of crossflow blower 206. In this arrangement, the combined height of the motor 214 and the crossflow blower 206 may be approximately equal to an internal height of an enclosure for the apparatus, such as height 114 of enclosure 101 of
In various embodiments, acoustic performance of a crossflow blower system may be improved by using two or more crossflow blower in series rather than a single crossflow blower operating independently. For example, crossflow blowers arranged in series may cooperate to provide the same pressure and flow performance of a single crossflow blower while operating at lower revolutions per minute (RPM) and therefore generating less acoustic disturbance. In various embodiments, similarities in inlet and outlet flow profiles of crossflow blower systems arranged in series suggest that at worst there should be no significant losses for the in-series configuration, and that at best, there may be synergistic coupling between the in-series crossflow blowers. In some embodiments, crossflow blowers arranged in series may be operated at incrementally different speeds in order to minimize blade pass frequency tones. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
As shown in
In various embodiments, tip-drive motor 400 may also include a fan rotor/magnet retainer 406. Fan rotor/magnet retainer may include fan blades and in some embodiments may have an approximate thickness of 0.5 mm-1.0 mm. In various embodiments, base plate 414 may include stator coils 410 and iron pads 412 in some embodiments. Iron pads 412 may be arranged to assist with the alignment of magnets at startup of the motor and may comprise 1008 steel and may have an approximate thickness of 0.4 mm-1.0 mm. Stator coils 210 may comprise 100 turns of 40 AWG and may have an approximate thickness of 0.5 mm-1.0 mm and may include thermal bond insulation.
In some embodiments, the placement of magnet disks 404 at or near the outer radius of the fan rotor 406 allows for the fan rotor 406 to be spun from near its perimeter rather than from a center point as in traditional fans. In various embodiments, this configuring may allow for a more favorable positioning of the motor hub such that interference with airflow is reduced compared to central axially driving rotors. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
The above described embodiments may be used to improve airflow in ultrathin notebooks having internal heights (e.g. first internal height 112 of
In various embodiments, use of any of the above described crossflow blower systems in an ultrathin notebook may result in enhanced cooling capability compared to traditional cooling methods that rely on centrifugal blowers that require inlet gaps above and/or below the blower in order to draw air through the notebook. For example,
In particular, the platform components 614 may include a cooling system implementing various crossflow blower techniques. The cooling system may be sized for the system 600, and may include any cooling elements designed to perform heat dissipation, such as heat pipes, heat links, heat transfers, heat spreaders, vents, fans, blowers, crossflow blowers and liquid-based coolants.
As shown in
Processor 602 may be a central processing unit comprising one or more processor cores and may include any number of processors having any number of processor cores. The processor 602 may include any type of processing unit, such as, for example, CPU, multi-processing unit, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC), a processor that have a pipeline, a complex instruction set computer (CISC), digital signal processor (DSP), and so forth.
Although not shown, the system 600 may include various interface circuits, such as an Ethernet interface and/or a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, and/or the like. In some exemplary embodiments, the I/O device 606 may comprise one or more input devices connected to interface circuits for entering data and commands into the system 600. For example, the input devices may include a keyboard, mouse, touch screen, track pad, track ball, isopoint, a voice recognition system, and/or the like. Similarly, the I/O device 606 may comprise one or more output devices connected to the interface circuits for outputting information to an operator. For example, the output devices may include one or more displays, printers, speakers, and/or other output devices, if desired. For example, one of the output devices may be a display. The display may be a cathode ray tube (CRTs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs), or any other type of display.
The system 600 may also have a wired or wireless network interface to exchange data with other devices via a connection to a network. The network connection may be any type of network connection, such as an Ethernet connection, digital subscriber line (DSL), telephone line, coaxial cable, etc. The network may be any type of network, such as the Internet, a telephone network, a cable network, a wireless network, a packet-switched network, a circuit-switched network, and/or the like.
Numerous specific details have been set forth herein to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. It will be understood by those skilled in the art, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known operations, components and circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the embodiments. It can be appreciated that the specific structural and functional details disclosed herein may be representative and do not necessarily limit the scope of the embodiments.
Various embodiments may be implemented using hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include processors, microprocessors, circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software may include software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints.
Some embodiments may be described using the expression “coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. For example, some embodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or “coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.
Some embodiments may be implemented, for example, using a machine-readable or computer-readable medium or article which may store an instruction, a set of instructions or computer executable code that, if executed by a machine or processor, may cause the machine or processor to perform a method and/or operations in accordance with the embodiments. Such a machine may include, for example, any suitable processing platform, computing platform, computing device, processing device, computing system, processing system, computer, processor, or the like, and may be implemented using any suitable combination of hardware and/or software. The machine- readable medium or article may include, for example, any suitable type of memory unit, memory device, memory article, memory medium, storage device, storage article, storage medium and/or storage unit, for example, memory, removable or non-removable media, erasable or non-erasable media, writeable or re-writeable media, digital or analog media, hard disk, floppy disk, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), Compact Disk Recordable (CD-R), Compact Disk Rewriteable (CD-RW), optical disk, magnetic media, magneto-optical media, removable memory cards or disks, various types of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), a tape, a cassette, or the like. The instructions may include any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, encrypted code, and the like, implemented using any suitable high-level, low-level, object-oriented, visual, compiled and/or interpreted programming language.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, it may be appreciated that terms such as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,” or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and/or transforms data represented as physical quantities (e.g., electronic) within the computing system's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. The embodiments are not limited in this context.
It should be noted that the methods described herein do not have to be executed in the order described, or in any particular order. Moreover, various activities described with respect to the methods identified herein can be executed in serial or parallel fashion.
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it should be appreciated that any arrangement calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or variations of various embodiments. It is to be understood that the above description has been made in an illustrative fashion, and not a restrictive one. Combinations of the above embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. Thus, the scope of various embodiments includes any other applications in which the above compositions, structures, and methods are used.
It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b), requiring an abstract that will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter that lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third,” etc. are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.
Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61142582 | Jan 2009 | US |
