Seagate Technology Incorporated

Apple Inc.

Other

Anthony Joseph Aiello

Klaus Dieter Kloeppel

Paco Gregor Flores

Jesse T Dybenko

Alan Lyndon Grantz

Arash Naghib Lahouti

Alan Lydon Grantz

Brett W Degner

Richard A Herms

Ali Khurram

Hans L Leuthold

Eric R Prather

Michael David Kennedy

Christopher Michael Woldemar

Brad Lee Patton

Reid E Berry

Norbert Steven Parsoneault

Troy Michael Herndon

Raquib Uddin Khan

Jay S Nigen

Jeffry Arnold LeBlanc

Chris Michael Woldemar

Steven C Knoche

Nicholas Mancini

Xiong Liu

Gunter Karl Heine

Jonathan L Berk

Michael E Leclerc

Robert Alan Nottingham

Eric Andrew Knopf

Robert Michael Pelstring

Mohamed Mizanur Rahman

Kristopher P Laurent

Choon Kiat Lim

Lynn Bich-Quy Le

PohLye Lim

Cheng Ping Tan

Donald James Macleod

Karen Y Cheng

Klaus Diete Kloeppel

William K Smith

Chuen Buan Lee

Trevor J Edmonds

Alex Gredinberg

Philippe P Herrou

Kwonil D Fleischman

Ashkan Rasouli

PowMing Yap

Peter R Riegler

ChunHong D Jing

WeiRhen S Hoon

Chetan Harsha Edara

Pavan Kumar Varma Buddaraju

Robert Alan Notthingham

A thermal module includes parts with diverging or divergent walls that cause a capillary pressure gradient in a bonding paste used to secure the parts together. Based in part on the capillary pressure, the bonding paste is drawn in between the divergent walls, including small gaps between the walls. Additionally, during a reflow operation of the bonding paste, particles and/or air bubbles can egress from the bonding paste, allowing the bonding paste to freeze and form a homogeneous structure. By removing particles and air bubbles, the bonding paste can form a more robust structural joint and a hermetic seal for the thermal module. The multiple parts of the thermal module can be formed into their respective shapes prior to be joined together by the bonding paste. As a result, the formation of the thermal module is less likely to damage other structures, such as wick structures.

Thermal module and joining method for hermetically sealed enclosure of a thermal module using a capillary joint

Fan assemblies are disclosed. Fan assemblies include an impeller with asymmetric design. For example, an impeller may include a first set of blades with one geometry and second set of fan blades with another geometry. This enables a dual-inlet centrifugal fan to generate different air flow performance characteristics for the air entering one fan inlet compared to the air entering the other fan inlet. The impeller, with different fan blade configurations, can better handle air flow entering the fan assembly through different inlets, particularly when the air flow conditions differ through the inlets due to impeding structures (e.g., motor, struts, etc.). As a result, air flow distribution from air leaving the impeller, including the locations associated with the different fan blade configurations, is relatively uniform. Beneficially, when air flow distribution uniformity increases, the fan assembly operates more efficiently, as air flow pressure losses due to flow separation are mitigated.

Fan impeller with sections having different blade design geometries

An electronic device includes a fan assembly that draws air (including heated air) away from components and forces the air out of the electronic device. The fan assembly includes a guide vane located in the fan housing. Subsequent to air entering the fan assembly via the fan inlets, the guide vane is designed to direct the air to a fan outlet. Further, the guide vane is designed and positioned in the fan assembly to limit or prevent flow separation that may cause the heated air to recirculate and may also cause increased turbulence leading to elevated acoustic noise. Furthermore, the guide vane may include a tapered region to allow the heated air to readily flow over the guide vane to limit or prevent a vortex from occurring within the fan assembly. Using the guide vane, the fan assembly drives more air at the same fan speed and lowers noise generation.

Cooling fan and electronic devices with a cooling fan

Systems and methods are provided for mitigating recirculation of backflow fluid through a fan. The fan includes a housing having a channel that extends from an inlet to an outlet of the housing. A rotor assembly is positioned within the channel and is configured to direct a fluid flow from the inlet to the outlet. The rotor assembly includes a hub, a plurality of fan blades, and a shroud disposed about a circumference of the fan blades, where a radial gap extends between the shroud and the housing. The radial gap is configured to receive a portion of the fluid flow from the outlet as backflow fluid. The rotor assembly also includes an inlet flange that is configured receive the backflow fluid from the radial gap and to direct the backflow fluid in a direction away from the inlet prior to discharge of the backflow fluid from the radial gap.

Fan flow directing features, systems and methods

A cooling system for optimizing fan air flow performance without compromising acoustic performance is disclosed. At least three fan feature embodiments are disclosed: (1) sloped fan blades, (2) sloped impeller hubs, and (3) inlet flow guidance features. For the first embodiment, fan blades attached to an impeller disc and having leading edges that progressively curve toward a center of the impeller disc. For the second embodiment, the impeller disc is attached to and centered on an impeller hub that has a sloped hub surface that progressively curves toward the fan blades. For the third embodiment, an inlet flow guidance feature is positioned within a region surrounding a fan's inlet promoting smooth passage of air into the fan. In some embodiments, all three fan features are combined.

Method to reduce entrance losses to increase fan inlet flow and reduce acoustic noise

A fan assembly having a reduced dimension formed by several modifications is described. The fan assembly includes a stator having stator coils positioned within a recessed portion of a pillow that receives the motor. The stator may include wire connections positioned between adjacent stator coils and designed to terminate wires of the stator coils. The wire terminations may be on a protrusion or a post positioned between adjacent stator coils, or alternatively, the wire terminations may be disposed on protruding features of a bushing. The protrusion may be formed from an electrically conductive material and electrically connected to a motor control circuit via a flexible printed circuit. In some embodiments, the protrusion is part of an electrically neutral stator bushing having several pins. Also, a gap region between the bushing and a flange feature is designed to improve an adhesive joint.

Adhesive joint features

The described embodiments relate to improving efficiency of a low-profile cooling fan. In one embodiment, an impeller of the cooling fan includes a shroud which covers a central portion of the impeller, thereby allowing a central inlet portion of the blades to have an increased fan blade height when compared to a cooling fan constrained by minimum part tolerances between the fan blades and a portion of the fan housing. In some embodiments, the impeller includes splitter blades that can improve performance of the low-profile cooling fan.

Shrouded fan impeller with reduced cover overlap

Electronic devices have peripheral drive centrifugal fans having smaller hubs and increased air flows to manage heat levels within the electronic device. A peripheral drive centrifugal fan includes a fan housing, an impeller including a plurality of blades, and a plurality of stacked inductor groups radially disposed about the impeller. Some of the blades have magnetically active portions. Each stacked inductor group includes first and second coils configured to impart a variable magnetic force to the magnetically active portion of a blade to drive the impeller along a rotational direction. The first and second coils can be selectively energizable independently from each other to provide greater control of the impeller.

Peripheral drive centrifugal fan

A thermal management system that includes a fan assembly, a heat exchanger, and an insulating box is described. The fan assembly can have two impellers and a housing that includes two scroll portions. An internal portion of the scroll wall can be truncated. A motor housing can be connected to the fan housing via multiple struts. The struts can be oriented angularly with a tangential component and can slope inward to increase the effective inlet area. The heat exchanger can be formed of a fin stack that has a curved body that defines an airflow path that turns radially from the inlet to the exhaust. The heat exchanger can have an inlet that is smaller than the exhaust. The heat exchanger can be connected to one or more heat pipes. The insulating box can have a grid that directs air to certain specific directions.

Thermal management components for electronic devices

In an exemplary electronic device with a cooling fan, a fan assembly is attached to a keyboard assembly of the electronic device. The fan assembly includes an impeller at least partially inside a fan enclosure. The fan enclosure has, on a surface, an inlet opening and an external protrusion. The electronic device further includes a bottom case. The fan assembly is positioned between the keyboard assembly and the bottom case and oriented such that the inlet opening and the external protrusion face the bottom case. The external protrusion maintains a passage between the fan enclosure and the bottom case that allows air to enter the inlet opening and also resists interference between the rotating impeller and the stationary bottom case.

Electronic device with cooling fan

A method to reduce acoustic noise in a cooling fan motor is disclosed. The method includes reducing the slew rate of a PWM (pulse width modulation) voltage waveform applied to energize a coil of the fan motor. This slew rate reduction results in lower mechanical vibrations and acoustic noise in the fan motor. In one embodiment, the slew rate reduction is performed during startup of the fan motor, when the motor is spinning slowly and there is little air flow noise. In another embodiment, the slew rate reduction is not performed during high speed operation of the fan motor, when the fan motor is spinning very fast and air flow noise masks the motor noise. In one embodiment, there is variable slew rate control depending on the speed of the fan motor.

Method of controlling start-up noise in BLDC (brushless direct current) fan motors

A fluid dynamic bearing motor and method are provided for use with various disc drive memory device products differently rated by operational rotational speed. The operational speeds are those speeds measured during reading and writing memory operations to the memory device. In an aspect, the present invention meets full operating requirements, including stiffness and power requirements, at multiple rated speeds for use with either standard or high-end performance disc drive products. Costs associated with a dedicated manufacturing line for high-end products are substantially reduced. A single manufacturing line can serve both standard and high-end disc drive memory device products. The present invention is especially useful in reducing costs of 2.5 inch notebook products that are typically marketed in two levels of performance, namely, 5400 RPM standard performance products and 7200 RPM high performance products.

Stationary and rotatable components operational with first and second stators

A fan assembly for a computing device is disclosed. The fan assembly can include an impeller having a number of blades and a motor for turning the blades. The motor can turn the blades via a magnetic interaction between the impeller and the motor. A fluid dynamic thrust bearing can be used to control a position of the impeller relative to the motor. In particular, the impeller can be configured to rotate around an axis and the thrust bearing can be used to control movement of the impeller in a direction aligned with the rotational axis. In one embodiment, the thrust bearing can be configured to stabilize the impeller when vibratory forces act upon the fan assembly. More particularly, parameters associated with the thrust bearing can be selected to counteract vibratory forces emitted by a speaker system.

Compact fan assembly with thrust bearing

Growing community of inventors

Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

Anthony Joseph Aiello