One of the new features of the iPhone 17 Pro is a liquid cooling system known as a vapor chamber. Apple has today highlighted the benefits of this in a new video on its YouTube channel, called Peak Performance.
The minute-long video opens with a man running in a desert and a drop of water falling from the sky to land on his forehead with a sizzle …
Vapor chamber
One of the limiting factors for exploiting the full performance of an advanced processor is heat. Once a chip hits its maximum operating temperature, the operating system needs to throttle back the performance in order to protect it from heat damage. For some tasks, this thermal throttling can be a major constraint on performance.
Smartphones have traditionally relied purely on passive cooling in the form of heat sinks, essentially a block of metal or graphite which aims to absorb heat and radiate it to the exterior casing.
However, the iPhone 17 Pro models got a more advanced form of cooling known as a vapor chamber. These contain liquid, and when the heat reaches certain levels, that liquid is vaporized. That vapour travels to the chassis of the phone where it condenses back into a liquid, reducing the temperature.
Peak Performance video
A vapor chamber is a pretty techy thing to explain to mass-market consumers, so Apple illustrates it with a new ad which makes the point in an easily-comprehensible way.
As the water droplet lands on the man’s head, it evaporates, cooling him. The video then shows him simultaneously playing a piano and solving a Rubik’s Cube whilst continuing to run – before he breaks through two concrete walls.
The Apple A19 Pro chip is vapor cooled. Because when you run cool, you can push your limits and juggle over 35 trillion complex tasks a second. Just imagine if we were that powerful.
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