Silencer and electronic equipment

Abstract

A silencer is disclosed that includes a housing having a flat enclosing shape and having formed therein a passage for silencing; and pores, being formed at the housing so as to be communicatively connected with the passage, into which a sound wave to be noise is introduced. The pores, being formed close to the periphery of the housing, are configured so that the sound wave travels in the planar direction of the housing.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is a U.S. continuation application filed under 35 USC 111(a) claiming benefit under 35 USC 120 and 365(c) of PCT application JP02 / 13679, filed Dec. 26, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention generally relates to a technology for silencing fan noise, and particularly relates to a silencer suitable for use in a fan-noise silencing process and electronic equipment having provided therein the silencer. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] In recent years and continuing, as small-sized electronic equipment such as a notebook PC and a desk-top PC is made smaller and faster, the amount of heat dissipation required for a semiconductor apparatus (such as a CPU) set up inside is on the increase. It is possible to air-cool using a fan as means for cooling the semiconductor apparatus. [0006] However, with the method of cooli...

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Benefits of technology

[0028] It is a general object of the present invention to provide a technology for silencing fan noise that

Problems solved by technology

However, with the method of cooling using the fan, there is a problem such that increasing the number of rotations of the fan in order to increase the cooling efficiency results in increased fan noise.

Moreover, while only a small-sized fan can be fit into the downsized electronic equipment as described above, it is known that with the same air amount, the smaller the fan the larger the fan noise.

However, with the water-cooling, the structure of the apparatus becomes complicated so as to cause an increased product cost, and the enlarged apparatus runs counter to the demand for downsizing.

Moreover, a problem arises such that an increased number of components leads to an increased failure rate, so as to cause decreased reliability of the electronic equipment into which the water-cooled cooling apparatus is fit.

Moreover, when the CPU continues to operate for more than or equal to a certain time period, there is a case such that the number of rotations of the fan becomes the maximum so that there is no longer any advantage in controlling the number of rotations.

Thus, in the method of reducing the noise generated at the fan, the noise cannot be suppressed effectively.

However, conventionally, such method of using a silencer is used in a relatively large apparatus such as an air-conditioning apparatus but not in smaller-sized electronic equipment such as a PC.

Now, there is more demand for downsizing the silencer to be fit into small-sized electronic equipment relative to the conventional silencer fit in large-sized equipment such as an air-conditioning apparatus so that the constraint on the size of the silencer to be fit into the small-sized electronic equipment is severe.

Moreover, when the configuration is made such that the fan noise generated at the fan 1 is reliably eliminated, there is a problem in that the silencer 10 ends up being large such that a further demand for downsizing the small-sized electronic equipment cannot be met.

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