In the early days of computing, companies bought giant computers called mainframes. Those computers utilized specialized external components called “chillers”. The idea was fairly simple – run chilled water through the mainframe computer to keep the components running cool, dissipating the heat created by each.

Jump ahead to the 1980′s and the PC revolution begins taking over, and in most cases, replaces much of the need for mainframe functioning due to the smaller computer’s ability to process applications efficiently at a fraction of the cost of the mainframe systems.  Since the computers “clock speed” or processor speed is low, there is very little heat compared to that of the mainframe.

In 1965, Gordon Moore of Intel created a fairly reliable prediction that was labeled “Moore’s Law”, which is, “the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years”. Well that has happened fairly regularly up to the current time.

 
Problem with that is not only have the transistors doubled, but the die on which they are cast as well as the size of those transistors continues to shrink. We now talk in terms of “nanometers”. A nanometer (one billionth of a meter) is the measure by which technology companies use to define size of processor/transistor density.  To give you a point of reference to a nanometer, the width of a human hair is about 180 nanometers (nm).
 
Computer manufacturers are creating processors at the 65nm level now (32nm, by the way, is just around the corner). However, as we all know from our high school physics class, one of the major byproducts of electricity is heat (see paragraph one). And as manufacturers crank up the electrical speed of their devices, the heat becomes even more of an issue and increases exponentially, and has caused manufacturers to become increasingly focused on how to dissipate it.

Since we are dealing with transistors that are invisible to the naked eye, with components that are able to hold single eletrons, computer engineers have to start dealing with heat at a different level than most of us will ever have to understand – the quantum physics level.

At this level, heat envelopes and tolerances become a major factor since the material used to increase speed must be able to withstand chemical change (i.e., melting) for long periods of sustained use, as well as deal with the heat dissipation from components sitting next to each other.
 
As Moore’s Law continues, so must manufacturers continue to devise ways to cool the processers, and avoid us trying to devise “water chillers” at the nanometer level.