PlayStation is a well-known game console series of Sony Corporation in Japan. It has a very high popularity in the game console market. Its fourth-generation console PS4 has sold more than 100 million units worldwide so far. On the evening of October 8, Sony officially announced that the next-generation console will be released at the end of 2020, and the product name will be confirmed as "PlayStation 5."
Perhaps to attract players, Sony also announced the official teardown video of the PS5. After the huge PS5 game console is disassembled, the luxurious heat dissipation module is very eye-catching. It not only has huge cooling fans, huge heat sinks, and even liquid metal heat-conducting materials that are very rare in mass-produced electronic products.
PS5 uses liquid metal thermal interface material on the system processing chip
In fact, liquid metal TIM is not a rare thing. The reason why it is rare in electronic products is that it is conductive and fluid. Once it penetrates, it will cause short circuit failure of the circuit board, which is very risky. In addition, gallium alloy-based liquid metal has a strong wetting and corrosive to aluminum, and aluminum is the most common material for radiators. Although copper is more resistant to corrosion by gallium alloys, it cannot be completely avoided. Therefore, it needs to be protected by nickel plating.
The part of the radiator in contact with the liquid metal TIM is electroplated to prevent corrosion
The reason for this decision is that the PS5 main processor (SoC) has a high operating frequency, but the die is small and the heat density is very high, especially when playing games, which is much higher than that of the PS4. Moreover, the use of liquid metal TIM can also help reduce the overall cost of the heat dissipation system-for example, suppose a system originally used a 10 yen TIM with a 1,000 yen radiator, and now it is replaced with a 100 yen TIM with 500 yen If the radiator can achieve the same heat dissipation effect, the total cost can be reduced from 1010 yen to 600 yen.
Considering that PS is not a very fast-changing electronic product such as a mobile phone, the general life cycle is at least 5 years, so it is really surprising that Sony dares to do so. But according to related news, about two years ago, when the hardware configuration and shape of the PS5 were roughly determined, Sony had already begun to prepare for the use of liquid metal TIM, and began various research from manufacturing process to procurement.
In any case, only after time has passed can we know whether Sony's decision to adopt liquid metal is correct, let us wait and see. If PS5 really withstands this test, maybe the thermal conductivity market of electronic products will also set off a revolution.