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Samsung's Galaxy S7 packs a diversity of new features and capabilities, likewise as some returning favorites, similar a microSD slot. One of the more interesting aspects of the announcement, however, was Samsung'due south announcement that the S7 would employ liquid cooling. Typically, liquid cooling conjures images of an external radiator cake and liquid reservoir, or at least an integrated shut-loop liquid cooler (CLLC).

What Samsung is actually using is known as a oestrus pipe — and while it does involve a tiny fleck of liquid, it'southward not "liquid cooling" every bit we commonly use the term. Since smartphones don't include fans, the SoC's cooling performance is limited to how much heat its passive cooler can dissipate. Tablets often have ventilation holes, even if they lack fans, only phones typically lack them. Apple uses layers of graphite practical to its processors and modem, as shown in the image below.

Image by iFixit

Epitome by iFixit

In that location comes a bespeak, however, when a material layer lonely isn't sufficient. Microsoft also used a liquid libation for the Lumia 950 and 950XL when it launched those devices, and we aren't surprised to see Samsung following suit.

How a heat pipe works

Oestrus pipes use evaporative cooling and a tiny corporeality of fluid — typically water — to offer superior cooling functioning compared with using an equivalent corporeality of solid copper. A tiny amount of fluid is sealed inside a pipe, with function of the pipe positioned over the components to be cooled.

LumiaHeatPipe

Microsoft'southward Lumia 950XL estrus piping

As the temperature within the pipe rises, the h2o inside the pipe vaporizes. Since the vapor tin't escape the system, information technology travels into the "cool" side of the rut pipage, transitions back into a liquid, and flows downward to the "warm" side again. The GIF beneath, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows how h2o is heated at the bottom of a heat pipage, rises to the peak, cools back to a liquid, and returns to the bottom of the heatsink.

How a heat pipe functions

How a heat pipe functions

Heat pipes don't just outperform a solid block of copper; they likewise weigh less, since the pipage itself is hollow. Websites that refer to this as "liquid" cooling are playing a chip with the truth — it'southward a engineering we've used in CPU coolers for over a decade — but information technology does rely on a tiny drop of fluid inside the copper core.

No such thing as a free tiffin

Smartphone companies are moving to prefer heat pipes because the technology should allow for more sustained boost clocking and steadier overall performance. Smartphone workloads are typically modeled as short cycles with long intervals of rest betwixt them ("brusk and "long" are both relative to automobile cycles, not human perceptions of time). The VR applications and advanced functionality that companies like Samsung and Microsoft are targeting for next-generation devices make this approach a smart one, and I suspect the estrus pipe exists partly because Samsung has more than aggressive plans for VR content than it did a year ago. That's as well why pre-orders in the U.s. and U.k. will receive a complimentary Gear VR.

Image from the first S7 teardown. Heat pipe boxed in red. Teardown by hi-tech.mail.ru

Epitome from the first S7 teardown. Oestrus pipage boxed in scarlet. Teardown past hi-tech.post.ru

The other advantage of a heat pipe is that Samsung can position it to cool particular hot spots on the SoC die. While the entire system would however benefit from integrating a rut sink, fifty-fifty a rut piping lonely can improve performance compared to the graphite method Apple uses, whereas a copper plate would exist also heavy. There are similarities to this approach and Intel's use of Turbo Boost — the smartphone cooler can deliver increased performance until the estrus pipe becomes also hot to permit it. Turbo Boost is designed to requite x86 CPUs a similar advantage by allowing the CPU to striking higher-than-normal clocks for brusque periods until it exceeds a pre-programmed TDP or thermal trip bespeak.

Expect to come across more techniques similar this used on SoCs as high-operation demand continues to grow. Large phones bought the manufacture a temporary breather, since bigger devices take more than thermal dissipation space and allow for larger batteries, only the three-manner fight between device thickness, performance, and battery life can't have 3 winners.

Oculus has announced that anyone who pre-orders a Galaxy S7 and receives their free Gear VR will also be eligible to download six VR games with an estimated value of $l. Bundles will vary past carrier; specific data is not available at this time.