Apple’s thermal engineering team tackled the folding iPhone’s heat challenge by turning the iPhone Duo’s hinge into a cooling conduit. In a PCMag interview, Dan Murray, Apple’s vice president of silicon engineering, and Banafsheh Barabadi, senior manager of thermal product design, explained how the new A20 Pro chip—built on a 2 nm process—powers the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo. The Duo’s variant adds a second display engine for simultaneous inner and outer screen operation and supports placing the FaceTime camera behind the inner display.
To manage heat in the thick‑folded form factor, Apple designed a “metal over foam” material that directly couples the SoC to a vapor chamber, and it co‑engineered a flexible graphite pipe through the hinge itself, creating a larger surface area for heat dissipation. This dual‑approach, requiring months of material development, ensures thermal performance while preserving mechanical integrity across hinge cycles. The design also benefits from placing DRAM next to the processor rather than stacking it, improving efficiency.
The result is a sleek folding device that maintains smooth performance despite the added thermal constraints.
Source: 9to5Mac · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing