A cooling apparatus and method of fabrication are provided for facilitating removal of heat from a heat generating electronic device. The cooling apparatus includes a thermally conductive base having a substantially planar main surface, and a plurality of thermally conductive pin fins wire-bonded to the main surface of the thermally conductive base and disposed to facilitate the transfer of heat from the thermally conductive base. The thermally conductive base can be a portion of the electronic device to be cooled or a separate structure coupled to the electronic device to be cooled. If a separate structure, the thermally conductive base has a coefficient of thermal expansion within a defined range of a coefficient of thermal expansion of the electronic device. In one implementation, the wire-bonded pin fins are discrete, looped pin fins separately wire-bonded to the main surface and spaced less than 300 micrometers apart in an array.