xMEMS delivers active cooling for smart glasses

xMEMS Labs, Inc. has announced a new µCooling fan-on-a-chip platform for XR smart glasses, claiming the industry’s first in-frame active cooling solution for AI-powered wearable displays. Heat has become a problem in smart glasses as they integrate AI processors, advanced cameras, sensors, and high-resolution AI displays, which is a performance as well as user comfort and safety issues, the company said.

Total device power (TDP) is increasing from 0.5–1 W levels to 2 W and beyond, resulting in significant heat in the frame materials that touch the skin, xMEMS said, and “conventional passive heat sinking struggles to maintain safe and comfortable surface temperatures for devices worn directly on the face for extended periods.”

(Source: xMEMS Labs, Inc.)

The µCooling technology delivers localized, precision-controlled active cooling from inside the glasses frame without impacting the form factor or aesthetics. With its solid-state, piezoMEMS architecture, it does not contain any motors or bearings, so there is no mechanical wear, delivering greater reliability. In addition, the footprint can be as small as 9.3 × 7.6 × 1.13 mm, which allows it to fit into space-constrained frame designs.

“xMEMS’ µCooling technology is the only active solution small, thin, and light enough to integrate directly into the limited volume of the eyewear frame, actively managing surface temperatures to enable true all-day wearability,” said Mike Housholder, VP of marketing, xMEMS Labs, in a statement.

xMEMS reports that thermal modeling and physical verification of µCooling in smart glasses operating at 1.5-W TDP has demonstrated 60–70% improvement in power overhead (resulting in up to 0.6 W additional thermal margin); up to 40% reduction in system temperatures, and up to 75% reduction in thermal resistance.