Demand for Heat-Pipes for Smartphones May Emerge

Samsung Electronics has adopted heat-pipes for its Galaxy S7-series, and this is expected to become a trend in the smartphone industry bringing business opportunities for heat-pipe makers. However, related production equipment suppliers pointed out that the makers have not added molds specifically for producing smartphone-use heat-pipes signaling demand has not yet grown to a sufficient level.

Samsung has launched variant models of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. One adopts Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 AP and only sells in North America. The other version uses Samsung's 14nm Exynos 8890 AP and is selling to other markets. The model with Qualcomm's solution uses heat-pipes.

However, Samsung has not confirmed its smartphones' specifications.

Although heat-pipes have already become prevalent in PC products, the cooling solution is still an emerging trend for the smartphone market as most smartphone vendors still prefer graphite for cooling along with help from metal chassis or software.

Since smartphone heat-pipes require customized designs, while smartphones have a rather short life-cycle, most heat-pipe makers are conservative about investing in new molds.