ich helps achieve higher integration, lower power, and enhanced performance. 8.6 COOLING TECHNOLOGIES Two new technologies developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology promise to remove heat from electronic devices and could help future gener- ations of laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, telecom switches, and high-powered military equipment keep their cool in the face of growing power demands. The technologies-synthetic jet ejector arrays (SynJets) and vibration- induced droplet atomization (VIDA)-are designed to keep telecom devices cool despite relentless miniaturization. "There is a lot of concern in the elec- tronics industry about thermal management," says Raghav Mahalingam, a Georgia Tech research engineer and the technology's codeveloper. "New processors are consuming more power, circuit densities are getting higher, and there is pressure to reduce the size of devices. Unless there is a breakthrough in low-power systems, conventional fan-driven cooling will no longer be enough." Processors, memory chips, graphics chips, batteries, radio frequency com- ponents, and other devices found in electronic equipment generate heat that must be dissipated to avoid damage. Traditional cooling techniques use metal- lic heat sinks to conduct thermal energy away from the devices, then transfer it to the air via fans. However, cooling fans have a number of limitations. For instance, much of the circulated air bypasses the heat sinks and doesn't mix well with the thermal boundary layer that forms on the fins. Fans placed directly over heat sinks have "dead areas" where their motor assemblies block airflow. Additionally, as designers boost airflow to increase cooling, fans use more energy, create more audible noise, and take up more space. 8.6.1 SynJets Developed by Mahalingam and Ari Glezer, a professor at Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering, SynJets are more efficient than fans, pro- ducing two to three times as much cooling with two-thirds less energy input. Simple and with no friction parts to wear out, a syn