Heat Sink

A heat sink is a passive heat exchanger that transfers heat generated by an electronic or mechanical device to a liquid medium, often air or coolant, where it is dissipated away from the device, allowing the device's temperature to be regulated. In computers, heat sinks are used to cool CPUs, GPUs, some chipsets, and RAM units. Heat sinks are used with high-power semiconductor devices such as power transistors and optoelectronics such as lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), where the heat dissipation capacity of the component itself is insufficient to cool down its temperature.