In this paper, the thermal performance of heat sinks with confined impingement cooling is measured by infrared thermography. The effects of the impinging Reynolds number, the width and the height of the fins, the distance between the nozzle and the tip of the fins, and the type of the heat sinks on the thermal resistance are investigated. The results show that increasing the Reynolds number of the impinging jet reduces the thermal resistance of the heat sinks consistently. However, the reduction of the thermal resistance decreases gradually with the increase of the Reynolds number. The thermal resistance can be decreased by increasing the fin width combined with an appropriate Reynolds number. Increasing the fin height to enlarge the area of heat transfer also decreases the thermal resistance, but the effects are less conspicuous than those on altering the fin width. An appropriate impinging distance with minimum thermal resistance can be found at a specific Reynolds number, and the optimal impinging distance increases as the Reynolds number increases. Generally speaking, the thermal performance of the pin-fin heat sinks is superior to that of the plate-fin heat sinks because the pin-fin heat sinks consist of smaller volumes but greater exposure surfaces. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.