opel their top-of-the-line, feature-rich notebooks ahead of the crowd, these companies used desktop CPUs in the notebooks.
One notebook maker, which didn't want to be named, said: "We are doing it because the desktop chips are so much cheaper."
However, these powerful processors consume a great deal of power and give off a lot of heat. This results in a host of problems, such as shorter component life and unstable board design.
"Most components can hardly sustain such a high operating temperature," says Brian Chong, director of the mobile system business unit at Acer.
Unfortunately, the introduction of high-power chips is expected to lead to a new round of the heat problems. "Excessive heat will become particularly pressing as Intel brings the P6 architecture to notebooks by mid-1998," says Frank Tso, director of the PC and workstation group at Umax Data Systems.
Intel's current task with the mobile version of Deschutes is to limit
the chip to 8 W while running at speeds of 233 and 266 MHz. Currently, the chip uses 12 W.
Seeking to address the looming heat-dissipation problem, vendors have developed many innovations in terms of thermal management. Some vendors say they will have to use fans and sophisticated cooling mechanisms to further cool the systems.
Most Taiwanese notebook makers are looking at a forthcoming crop of heat sinks, heat pipes, heat plates, and fans that may be on the top, bottom, and sides of the casing to keep the Deschutes notebooks cool.
Makers Wrestle with Hot Air
