Hinged heat pipes for cooling notebook PCs

In an endeavor to provide a total passive cooling solution for high heat dissipating CPU in a notebook computer environment, a new cooling method called hinged heat pipes system has been developed and is introduced here. This system takes the heat away from the CPU and dissipates it to the back of the display screen (LCD) via means of heat pipes and hinged connector. Its concept and design is discussed. From testing results, we will be able to show that hinged heat pipes system is capable of dissipating 10-12 watts of heat generated from the CPU while maintaining its surface temperature at less than 95/spl deg/C and not exceeding the thermal specification of LCD. We will also address the issue of thermal performance with respect to interfacing methods between heat pipes and hinged connector. Finally, we illustrate that hinged heat pipes cooling system is highly reliable through heat pipes' reliability data.