Burning issue facing chip and computer designers

Chip designers, computer makers, researchers and specialists are uniting to tackle one of the most urgent, but overlooked, for the global semiconductor industry: the soaring densities of heat on integrated circuits, particularly high-performance microprocessors.

Researchers are studying exotic new kinds of heat-conducting 'goop' that suck the heat out of a chip and convey it to heat sinks, which radiate it into the air.

Possibilities on the horizon include tiny self-contained evaporative cooling systems and even devices that capture the heat and turn it directly into electricity.

What has led researchers to such measures? Basic physics: virtually all of the power that flows into a chip comes out of it as waste heat. Today's standard-issue Pentium 4 throws off 100 W. Divide by the area and you get a heat flux of around 30 W per square centimetre - a power density several times higher than that of a kitchen hot plate.