One of the world’s biggest laptop ODMs haswon an iF Design Awardfor its innovative laptop cooling enhancement technology, reportsLiliputing. Taiwan’s Wistron has revealed its new Dynamic Airflow system, based on the concept of a ‘Hinge Auto-Extension,’ in a series of laptop renders. The images show that when a user opens up a clamshell laptop the rear ‘shelf’ heat module gets extended to boost airflow.
Wistron’s iF Design Award product description text is fairly brief. It presents the cooling problem in a typical laptop design where themotherboardand thermal component overlap. The solution it has come up with takes them out of alignment as the laptop is opened, and allows for much greater airflow.
People seem naturally attracted tothin and light laptopsfor portability but this creates a difficult thermal engineering problem, especially with workstations and gaming laptops packing GPUs which can consume over 100W alone in heavy workloads.
We have seen laptop makers leverage many innovations in recent years to try and keep thermals / noise under control. A recent example that springs to mind is theAsus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16. The second screen tilts upwards 13 degrees for better ergonomics and increased air intake. Less glamorous but also usefulscreen hinges that liftthe bottom of a laptop off a desk when flexed have gained popularity.
If not for the design award win, we might never have seenWistronassociated with its new Hinge Auto-Extension design. As an ODM it doesn’t release products under its own name, but familiar brands that have at one time or another made use of Wistron’s services include Microsoft, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and Xiaomi.
Whether one of the brands we know works with Wistron as an ODM picks up this idea as it stands, or adapts it, remains to be seen. With an iF Design Award under its belt, it may be likely that some vendors are now looking closely at the Wistron ‘Hinge Auto-Extension’. It might even be under test at one or more laptop makers, as the problem of hot processors in thin laptops is set to remain for some time. Last but not least, if and when this Wistron innovation does become available in a laptop, we’ll be sure to grab one for testing and review.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
