xMEMS starts production of cooling chips for compact electronics
xMEMS has started mass production of its XMC-2400 and XMC-4800 cooling chips, extending its piezoMEMS technology into thermal management for compact devices and lower-power data-centre components.
The company expects the first commercial products containing XMC-2400 to reach the market in early 2027. Target applications include wearable electronics and personal SSDs, while XMC-4800 is aimed at smartphones, enterprise storage and other more demanding cooling jobs.
Both devices replace rotating blades with microscopic silicon membranes driven at ultrasonic frequencies. Thin-film piezoelectric material converts an electrical drive into motion, producing pulses of air through micro-valve structures. The package can direct that flow towards a hot component or through a thermally coupled channel.
The production announcement gives XMC-2400 dimensions of 7.42 × 9.48 × 1.13mm and electrical consumption of approximately 150mW. XMC-4800 measures 9.93 × 14.35 × 1.13mm and consumes approximately 240mW. Their quoted maximum airflow figures are 28 and 48 cubic centimetres per second respectively, with maximum back-pressure figures of 1,300Pa and 1,100Pa.
Those maxima describe different parts of an air mover’s operating behaviour. Delivered airflow depends on the resistance of the surrounding path, so a headline flow figure cannot be assumed to remain available against the maximum quoted pressure.
The proposed data-centre uses are local: cooling storage controllers, memory, optical modules or similar components. A rack can have a sophisticated liquid loop around its processors while smaller devices remain dependent on the air moving through their immediate surroundings. Packaging an active air mover close to one of those devices changes where that airflow can be generated.
xMEMS reports customer tests showing temperature reductions of 10–25°C across glasses, smartphones and SSDs. The release does not provide a common test fixture or operating condition for that range, so it should be read as a set of application results rather than a guaranteed reduction for every installation.
