Overview
- Apple disclosed the engineering details in a PCMag interview Monday, confirming a hinge‑routed flexible graphite heat pipe and a four‑pillar thermal architecture for the iPhone Duo.
- The four thermal pillars are an unstacked DRAM layout that gives direct silicon access, a metal‑over‑foam thermal coupling, an enlarged vapor chamber with more deionized water, and a nanotube copper plate behind the display.
- The hinge contains a flexible graphite heat pipe that Apple says transfers heat between both chassis halves to increase dissipation area and was co‑engineered with mechanical teams to survive repeated folding.
- The A20 Pro that powers the Duo is Apple’s first 2 nm iPhone chip and uses wafer‑level multichip‑module packaging to place DRAM beside the processor; the Duo variant also adds a second display engine and under‑display FaceTime camera support.
- One early hands‑on test reported the phone ran very hot when shooting 4K video, so broader reviewer testing and post‑launch use will be needed to confirm sustained thermal performance and real‑world impact on battery life and throttling.