While pretty much every element of your gaming PC can be lit by RGB these days, there are a few parts that are hard to light up with tiny, colorful LED lights. For example, the PSU isn't exactly a decorative part of your system; it's usually tucked away into a tray to hide all its nasty little cables. Similarly, even the best CPU for gaming won't bother trying to look nice because it'll always be covered by a cooler.
And yet, Intel has published a patent for CPUs with Micro-LED arrays inside them, which is a bit of a head-scratcher, really. The patent, titled "IC Package With Micro LEDs," was originally filed back in 2022, but Team Blue has finally published it (US Patent number US 12733303 B2).
It details the inclusion of these tiny lights through a glass substrate built directly onto the semiconductor die, saying, "certain electronic devices, such as do it yourself (DIY) electronic devices often utilize micro light emitting diodes (LEDs) as either aesthetic components of the electronic device or to indicate certain operations being performed by the electronic device."
That makes some sense, as even motherboards these days have both decorative LED lighting and small indicator LEDs to help indicate faults with certain parts of your build. They can be super useful in helping you troubleshoot and diagnose parts of your computer, but unless there were some radical redesigns to how CPUs are shaped, or how they're installed or cooled on a motherboard, I'm not sure how we'd be meant to see them.
"These micro LEDs could be used as an extra aesthetic component," the patent continues, "as in situ electrical test indicators, and/or enable light up wording across a central processing unit."
Again, this is an interesting description. CPUs have branding on their faces to tell you which CPU you're installing, but it's hard to see the point of that text being able to light up if the component itself needs to be covered by a cooler - and it always does.
The background summary of the patent continues, "In some cases, customers of these electronic devices are willing to pay extra in order to customize their electronic devices with micro LEDs." Excellent, so Intel knows we all pay more for the RGB variants of the hardware we like.
هەفتانە هەرسکردنەکان، چیرۆکەکانی ئەو کۆمەڵگایانەی کە خۆشت دەوێن و زۆر شتی تر
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/hardware/desktop-pc/in-an-utterly-pointless-seeming-move-intel-just-published-a-patent-for-rgb-lit-cpus-which-makes-no-sense-for-a-component-thats-always-covered-by-something/
