Hewlett-Packard Co has formed a new division to concentrate on chip cooling technologies, in response to what it calls inexorably rising CPU heat levels. At the Intel Developer Conference, HP launched its new PolarLogic thermal management components business, under the ArctiCooler brand name, and its first product, called SnowLeopard. Although the business is new, HP has been using similar technology to cool its own PA-RISC chips for at least two years in workstations and servers. But it says it decided to enter the wider market as it started to see conventional cooling technology starting to run out of gas. As well as offering its own line of products, Eric Petty, manager of the new unit, says HP will consider licensing heat sink designs based on its patented technology to other qualified suppliers. Unlike KryoTech Inc, which cools chips down to -40 degrees Celsius in order to gain additional speed, HP is more concerned with keeping chip temperatures down to an acceptable general operations level, and says its targeting the mainstream, performance and high-end systems business where the need is greatest. Its 2-Pass heat exchanger method is said to provide 2X cooling efficiency over the usual methods, and can be implemented as a drop-in heat sink. HP points out that multi-chip modules and conventional cooling technology won’t fit inside the ultra- compact system packaging now being introduced onto the market. SnowLeopard is designed to fit inside Intel Xeon Slot 2-based systems. PolarLogic is part of HP’s Integrated Circuit Business Division in the Electronic Components Group.