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Ultrasound-cooled notebooks
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cronywell
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🔊 TECHNOLOGY · IFA BERLIN 2026 Ultrasound-cooled notebooks How AirJet solid-state chips, with membranes that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies, are starting to replace traditional fans 🗓️ September 2026 ⏱️ Reading Time: 9 minutes midire.ar |
In the halls of IFA Berlin 2026, the most important consumer electronics fair in Europe, one of the most repeated findings of the specialized media had nothing to do with a brighter screen or a faster processor, but with something that is not seen: the system that keeps the computer cool from the inside. Several manufacturers, with Lenovo at the forefront, exhibited notebooks that completely dispense with traditional mechanical fans and instead use solid-state chips that expel air through membranes that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies.
The technology is not a laboratory promise: it is called AirJet, it has been developed by the American firm Frore Systems since 2019 and has already been perfected for several generations. What changed in 2026 is that it stopped being a fair demonstration to begin to be integrated into real notebook concepts, with their own names and a date of approach to the market.
🖥️ What was shown at IFA 2026
Lenovo brought two prototypes to Berlin that illustrate where this technology is headed. The most talked-about one, presented under the name "Project AeroBlade" (also referred to in the fair's coverage as ThinkBook Aero), is a notebook weighing less than 830 grams and less than 10 millimeters thick that has absolutely no ventilation grille or conventional fan.
Inside, Lenovo installed four AirJet Mini modules from Frore Systems, each just 2.65 millimeters thick, which are responsible for extracting the heat generated by the processor. As explained by the company itself, this solid-state active cooling architecture – commercially called "Active Flow" – allows the performance of artificial intelligence workloads to be sustained, reduces noise to almost imperceptible levels and eliminates the entry of dust that traditionally enters through the grilles of conventional equipment.
• Less space, less weight: By not needing the volume of a centrifugal fan or its intake grilles, Lenovo was able to reduce the size of the motherboard and, consequently, the entire chassis of the computer.
• Direct collaboration with Frore Systems: Lenovo did not buy a generic component, but developed the thermal design together with the company that invented the technology, something that anticipates a deeper integration in the future.
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"Lenovo put this laptop on a diet: it has absolutely no vent or traditional fan." — Specialized coverage of the Lenovo ThinkBook Aero at IFA 2026 |
🔬 How Ultrasonic Cooling Really Works
Despite the name "ultrasound," the technology has nothing to do with cleaning jewelry or ultrasound: it relies on the piezoelectric effect, the same physical principle that allows a quartz crystal to modulate the frequency in a watch or an inkjet printhead to shoot microscopic droplets with complete precision.
Inside each AirJet chip is a set of microelectromechanical structures (MEMS) that include ultra-thin membranes. When an electric current is applied to them, these membranes vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies — above the range audible to the human ear — with displacements of just tens of microns. This repetitive motion turns each membrane into a kind of miniature suction and ejection pump.
• Cold air suction: The vibration generates a strong depression that draws ambient air through inlet holes located on the top of the chip.
• High-speed pulsating jets: this air is then expelled in the form of microjets that reach speeds close to 200 kilometers per hour, directly impacting a copper heatsink in contact with the processor.
• Ten-fold higher return pressure: According to data from Frore Systems, an AirJet module can generate up to 1,750 pascals of back pressure, about ten times more than a conventional mechanical fan, allowing it to force air through even through heatsinks with fins close together, something that a traditional fan does not achieve efficiently.
• Hot air outwards: finally, this air, already charged with heat, is expelled from the computer through a small exhaust duct, without the need for the large grilles that are usually seen on the sides of a conventional notebook.
With no moving parts such as a rotor or blades, Frore Systems describes AirJet as a "solid-state" cooling system: there are no bearings to wear out, there is no mechanical vibration and, because it does not require large openings for air intake, the assembly can be sealed with filters that directly block dust ingress, something that in traditional fan equipment is one of the main causes of thermal degradation over time.
📊 Traditional fan vs. AirJet: the comparison
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Feature |
Traditional fan |
Chip AirJet (Frore Systems) |
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Moving parts |
Rotor and blades |
None (solid state) |
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Typical thickness |
8-12 mm or more |
2.65 mm per module |
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High Load Noise |
Up to 40+ dBA |
21-24 dBA per module |
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Dust resistance |
Low (open grids) |
Alta (sellable, IP53-IP68) |
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Generated back pressure |
Reference (1x) |
Up to 10 times larger |
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Scalability |
One fan per zone |
Multiple Combinable Chips |
🌐 It's not the only bet: the solid-state cooling landscape
Frore Systems is, so far, the company with the largest commercial deployment in this category – its technology has already been seen before in Zotac mini PCs, in high-performance SSD storage accessories and in Qualcomm reference platforms – but it is not alone. Different firms are exploring variants of the same concept of "air without moving parts": some, such as xMEMS, are betting on piezoelectric membranes built directly on silicon; others are moving forward with ionic wind technologies based on electrical discharges (known as EHD or DBD plasma), which move air without any mechanical vibration.
That expanding ecosystem suggests that 2026 could be remembered as the year solid-state cooling ceased to be a fairground curiosity and began to become a real alternative for a portion of the market for ultra-thin notebooks and edge AI devices, which need to sustain constant processing loads without being able to resort to a thick chassis or a noisy fan.
⚡ Why this matters right now
The interest in these solutions is not accidental: it coincides with the rise of Copilot+ PCs and notebooks aimed at artificial intelligence, which integrate processors capable of running models locally and that, therefore, generate sustained heat peaks very different from those of a traditional office notebook. When a processor overheats, the chip itself automatically reduces its speed to protect itself – the phenomenon known as thermal throttling – which ends up directly hitting the performance that the user perceives.
For manufacturers, moreover, the promise of a fanless system opens the door to thinner and lighter designs without sacrificing power, something that until now used to be solved by limiting the performance of the processor in ultra-thin computers. It is, in short, the same tension that ultra-thin notebooks with passive cooling face today: to remain silent and compact, but without that meaning giving up performance under sustained load.
🧩 The challenges that still lie ahead
• Cooling scale: Each AirJet Mini module removes a few watts of heat, so high-performance teams need to combine multiple chips in parallel, impacting the total cost of the system.
• Manufacturing cost: As these are components made with lithography processes similar to those of a silicon chip, their cost per unit is still higher than that of a conventional mass-produced mechanical ventilator.
• Actual adoption in final products: much of what was shown at IFA 2026, such as Lenovo, still corresponds to prototypes or "concepts", not to models that are already on sale in stores.
📈 Technology, in numbers
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Indicator |
Fact |
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AirJet Public Launch Year |
2023 (CES) |
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Thickness of an AirJet Mini module |
2.65-2.8 mm |
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Weight of an AirJet Mini module |
~11 grams |
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Generated back pressure |
Up to 1,750 pascals |
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Speed of micro air jets |
~200 km/h |
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Noise level of a module |
21-24 dBA |
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Weight of the Lenovo Project AeroBlade prototype |
< 830 grams |
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Grosor del prototipo Lenovo Project AeroBlade |
< 10 mm |
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
❓ What exactly is ultrasonic cooling in notebooks?
It's a solid-state cooling system, like Frore Systems' AirJet, that uses microelectromechanical membranes that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies to generate jets of air, replacing the traditional mechanical fan.
❓ Does the notebook with this system make any noise?
Yes, but much lower than a conventional fan: AirJet modules operate between 21 and 24 decibels, compared to the more than 40 decibels that a traditional fan can reach under high load.
❓ Which brands showcased this technology at IFA 2026?
Lenovo was the most prominent, with the Project AeroBlade (fanless, using AirJet) and Project Swan concept prototypes, although Frore Systems' technology had already been integrated into other devices since 2023.
❓ Can you buy a notebook with ultrasonic cooling now?
The models shown at IFA 2026 are mostly concept prototypes; AirJet technology is commercially available in some mini PCs, storage accessories and reference platforms from 2023.
🖼️ Reference Images
The following images, available on Wikimedia Commons under free licenses, illustrate the context of the fair and the traditional refrigeration system that this technology seeks to replace:
🖼️ South entrance of the Messe Berlin exhibition centre during IFA 2018, the usual venue of the fair: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IFA_2018_%E2%80%93_hlavn%C3%AD_vstup_jih.jpg
🖼️ Operating diagram of a traditional notebook cooling system, with fan and heatpipes: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diagram_-_How_a_laptop_cooling_system_works.png
🖼️ Heatsink and fan assembly typical of a previous generation notebook: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laptop_Heatsink.jpg
