xMems Labs has started mass production of its solid-state cooling chips, which it says could be deployed in data centers.

The company says the XMC-2400 and XMC-4800 chips are primarily for Edge AI devices, smartphones, and smart glasses, but can also provide targeted cooling in parts of the data center.

Its technology, which is based on its piezoMEMS semiconductor platform, works by using ultrasonic modulation to create airflow across its silicon cooling chip, sucking in cool air, which is run across microchannels to chill the hardware, before the waste heat is expelled.

While these devices are small in size and capacity when compared to main data center cooling systems, xMems says its XMC-4800, the more powerful of the two systems, could be deployed to provide additional cooling to components within a data hall, such as solid-state hard drives and “other lower-power subsystems.”

“Edge AI systems are creating thermal requirements that conventional cooling technologies cannot address,” said Mike Housholder, vice president and general manager of the thermal management business unit at xMems Labs. “XMC-2400 and XMC-4800 provide a unique active cooling solution for these next-generation Edge AI devices. As we enter mass production, xMems is ready to support growing customer demand at scale, while our monolithic silicon architecture creates a future path toward co-packaged thermal solutions alongside increasingly powerful Edge AI processors.”

A single XMC-4800 measures 9.93 x 14.35 x 1.13mm, and delivers up to 48 cubic centimeters of airflow per second at up to 1,100 Pa of back pressure, while consuming approximately 240mW (milliwatts). “In real-world testing, cooling customers have achieved chip and system-level temperature reductions between 10-25°C across glasses, smartphone and SSD devices,” the company claims, without going into detail of the configurations required to achieve this reduction.

The first products featuring the chips are expected to be available next year.

xMems, which is based in Silicon Valley, started out using its platform to make the world’s first solid-state speakers, which are just 1mm thick. It is now applying its technology platform in the cooling space.