AirJet Cooling Chip Coming First to $500 Eight-Core Mini PC Later This Year

A new, and perhaps revolutionary, way to cool computers is finally coming to an actual PC product. On Tuesday, Frore Systems announced its AirJet cooling module is slated to land in a mini PC from Zotac, a well-known innovator in compact desktops.

Zotac is using the AirJet to pack a more powerful eight-core Intel 3.8GHz “Alder Lake-N” processor into the 4-inch-long mini PC. In previous, fanless iterations of this Zotac chassis, the company could only employ lower-powered Celeron or Pentium chips. 

In contrast to traditional cooling fans, the AirJet module can lie atop a chip or chips and produce, via internal vibrations, a powerful suction force capable of pulling air through the AirJet's body and exhausting it from a laptop or other hardware. The improved and quieter cooling means the PC can run at higher speeds for a better performance gain, inside device form factors that could never fit a physical fan. AirJet cooling chips are thin and relatively small, taking up less space in all dimensions than old-school chassis fans. That makes them especially suited to mobile devices and the most compact PCs of all shapes.  

Back in December, Frore Systems debuted the AirJet cooling chip, and it generated some buzz with its promise to enable drastically improved cooling in tighter spaces across the tech ecosystem. But the big question has been when the technology will end up in consumer products. 

(Credit: Frore Systems)

Zotac is now poised to be among the first. The upcoming mini PC will be marketed more to businesses, rather than consumers. Still, Frore Systems says it’s been working with a growing number of companies, including consumer hardware vendors, in incorporating the AirJet technology. 

“We’re in pretty advanced stages of integrating our product into multiple platforms,” Dr. Seshu Madhavapeddy, the CEO of Frore Systems, told PCMag. “I do expect more announcements to come before the end of the year.”

We pressed on who these collaborators might be. “Everybody has their own cadence and timelines,” he added. “So we don’t want to jump the gun. We’ve been really careful about what we say for that reason.”

Where Will AirJet Appear Next?

That said, Dr. Madhavapeddy noted his company has seen manufacturer interest in using AirJet for products outside laptops. This has included packing the cooling chip inside stick PCs, on top of NVMe SSD memory, inside doorbell cameras, and even in LED overhead-lighting systems—all categories of products and components that pose significant thermal challenges. 

“What’s happening with the doorbell cameras is that everybody wants to increase the resolution of the video, and they want to add a lot of AI features,” Dr. Madhavapeddy said. “That requires loads and loads of edge-computing capability. And so with the thermal envelope within the same doorbell camera, you have to double it, at least.”

The AirJet module, on the other hand, could help future AI-powered video doorbells remain cool while keeping the products at the same size, he said. Other applications could even involve augmented-reality glasses and in-car hardware, although the AirJet hardware would likely need to be redesigned for such devices and implementations.

The Zotac Implementation

In Zotac’s case, the company is using two of Frore Systems' standard AirJet “mini” cooling chips, which have been placed directly over the processor and other supporting silicon components on a copper heat spreader. The enhanced cooling allowed the vendor to pack an eight-core Intel Core i3-N300(Opens in a new window) CPU into the handheld-size mini PC. (The N300 employs only Efficient cores, or E-cores, but that's still a great improvement over the lesser CPUs possible in this form factor until now.) Also incorporated in this design: swift NVMe SSD storage, as opposed to the more typical, slower eMMC storage in compact, low-cost systems like this. NVMe SSDs tend to run hot, and their presence in a system this size is a big step up from the fanless designs that preceded it.

(Credit: Zotac)

Without the AirJet modules, the mini PC under heavy load would be forced to throttle down the CPU to prevent itself from overheating. That would cut the system power down by half, far below the processor's 7-watt TDP, according to Frore Systems’ own benchmarks. 

“Obviously, it's not a viable product without AirJet,” Dr. Madhavapeddy said, later adding, “It's a Pentium or Celeron that they were using previously. This is the first time they were able to move to a (Core) i3.”

(Credit: Frore Systems)

(Credit: Frore Systems)

Zotac says the mini PC, its model PI430AJ Pico, will go on sale in Q4 for around $500. The company is also working on applying the AirJet cooling technology to other forms of mini PCs, so more announcements could follow.

“There's room for optimization,” added Dr. Madhavapeddy, who said Zotac's mini PC should be able to squeeze even more power to the chip while keeping the system running cool.

Frore Systems says it's producing all the AirJet modules in Taiwan, which is at the center of the PC-manufacturing ecosystem. The company's CEO added, regarding AirJet's incremental cost, “I can't give you the pricing because it's very, very specific to any kind of engagement based on volume and the timing, and so on. But price is not a barrier for folks to use this product.”