Article: Tiny Pump Cools Chips

http://www.technologyreview.com/read...81&ch=infotech

Researchers have built a tiny silicon-based device that can effectively
chill a surface, providing a novel, more effective way to cool
microchips. The new device, designed and fabricated by engineers at
Intel, the University of Washington in Seattle, and Belmont, MA-based
Kronos Advanced Technologies, uses ionized air and an electric field to
cool the surface.

Computers are heating up with each new generation of chips, as more and
more heat-producing transistors are crammed onto them. Indeed, experts
say that by the end of this decade, the classic cooling solution--using
metal heat sinks to draw heat away from chips, and a rotary fan to cool
the heat sinks and push the hot air out of computers--will no longer be
good enough.

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