New design for heat sink could speed up computers

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have come up with a new design for the heat exchanger used in home computers, writes Melissae Fellet for New Scientist. Traditional heat exchangers, which haven't changed much in 40 years, consisted of a heat sink and a fan. Unfortunately, although the fan stirred up the air around the heat sink's metal fins, a layer of stagnant air clinging to the fins would insulate them like a blanket and reduce the overall cooling effect. Spinning the fan faster helped, but made the computer very noisy. In the new design, the fan is the heat sink.