I haven't even seen anyone use liquid metal on these, just thermal pads.
I have been looking for close up images of the SoC because I haven't seen any of these in person disassembled enough to get a good look at it. But I would be exceptionally cautious using liquid metal for a few reasons.
# There is almost no protection from liquid metal dribbling off the sides of the SOC. Liquid metal is electrically conductive and this could mean pretty disastrous results if it gets into the wrong place. There is edge bonding around the top and bottom edges of the CPU, but I don't see any underfill or other protection from liquid metal getting under the CPU.
# Most laptop processors don't have an IHS. It's almost always just a bare die to a heat sink. That's not the case here, but I can't even tell for sure that it has an IHS, even if it's not a bare die. It's difficult to tell from images. But the pictures I could find makes the SoC look very textured. I could just be reading into things, but it mostly looks like a massive package soldered to the board. I would expect an IHS to look more like the inductors in the image below (have R40 written on them) than the NAND (the silvery chip in the lower right)
+
[image|3392516|size=medium|alignment=center]
-
[image|3392516]
+
If you want better thermal performance, a thermal pad may be worth looking into. It's much safer all around.
I haven't even seen anyone use liquid metal on these, just thermal pads.
I have been looking for close up images of the SoC because I haven't seen any of these in person disassembled enough to get a good look at it. But I would be exceptionally cautious using liquid metal for a few reasons.
# There is almost no protection from liquid metal dribbling off the sides of the SOC. Liquid metal is electrically conductive and this could mean pretty disastrous results if it gets into the wrong place. There is edge bonding around the top and bottom edges of the CPU, but I don't see any underfill or other protection from liquid metal getting under the CPU.
# Most laptop processors don't have an IHS. It's almost always just a bare die to a heat sink. That's not the case here, but I can't even tell for sure that it has an IHS, even if it's not a bare die. It's difficult to tell from images. But the pictures I could find makes the SoC look very textured. I could just be reading into things, but it mostly looks like a massive package soldered to the board. I would expect an IHS to look more like the inductors in the image below (have R40 written on them) than the NAND (the silvery chip in the lower right)
[image|3392516]
If you want better thermal performance, a thermal pad may be worth looking into. It's much safer all around.