Thermal Interface Materials and Substrate: Insulated Metal Substrate and Copper-Clad Thermal Pre-Preg
Proper choice of thermal interface materials from thermal grease, thermal gel, phase-change thermal pad and film, or thermal adhesive is one of the critical aspects of thermal management for long-term reliability. AI Technology has more than 25 years of providing the state-of-the-arts materials and solutions for thermal management: patented compressible phase-change thermal pads, lowest thermal resistance thermal interface pads measured, lowest thermal resistance greases used for over-clocking computing industries, and lowest thermal resistance diamond adhesives first used in supercomputers more than 15 years ago.
"Every 10°C increase in chip junction temperature cuts the life of the device by half."
Besides pioneering the use of "phase-change" materials (PCM) as thermal interface materials (TIM), AIT has provided the microelectronic packaging industries with its flexible epoxy thermal adhesives for managing interfacial stress induced by differential coefficient of thermal expansion between bonding adherends. These novel thermal management materials have found extensive uses and successes in critical military and aerospace applications.
The same stress-free dielectric adhesives are now made adopted for use in insulated metal substrate with copper and aluminum clads. The key advantage of these thermal management materials is the unparalleled long-term reliability attributed to its ability to withstand repeated thermal cycling and stress-free bonding between the heat-spreader plate and the circuit layer. AIT also offers the same flexible epoxy pre-preg with high thermal conductivity for the more advanced multilayer insulated metal substrate circuits and modules. These novel class of thermal management materials provides a platform and infrastructure for large area thermal management of power modules such as solar cells, LED panels, etc.
Thermal Interface Materials: Thermal Gels (COOL-GEL®), Thermal Greases (COOL-GREASE®) and Phase-Change and Compressible Thermal Pad (COOL-PAD™), and in-situ bonding and high thermal adhesives (COOL-BOND®)
AIT pioneered the use of "phase-change" thermal interface materials (TIM) including thermal pads (COOL-PAD™) and the patented compressible phase-change material in the thermal management of microprocessors of personal computers, power converters and supplies. COOL-PAD™ is a phase-change thermal interface material that handles like a plastic sheet that flows and performs like grease during device operation with 200-600% improvement observed in usage.
With continuous improvements and innovation, AI technology has made the patented compressible phase-change thermal pad as thin as 1 mil is available for volume production uses with the lowest measured thermal resistance. These thin bond-line thermal interface materials have proven in some of the most demanding thermal applications in industrial and computer gaming applications.
AI Technology has also incorporated its high thermal conductive solutions into the high temperature interpentrating polymer network material to provide a CTE matched aluminum and copper clad thermal insulated metal substrate for high power and/or high temperature electronics applications.
Measured with thermal resistance lower than all available industry "standards" and less than 0.005°C/W-sq.in., AIT thermal gels (COOL-GEL®), thermal greases (COOL-GREASE®) and COOL-PAD™ have proved themselves as a standard for the best thermal interface materials. COOL-SILVER™ has been tested and proven to surpassed the best of thermal interface greases ever used in overclocking computing community by a wide margin.
AIT has recently enhanced the thermal resistance reduction for some of the most critical application in cooling CPU. The following charts represents the results based on the measurements in December 2009 comparing all of the best performing thermal greases that have been tested by the "BenchMark Review.com" with the third generation COOL-SILVERTM GREASE. The same performance is nowe available with easier to use then ever patented compressible phase-change COOL-SILVERTM PAD that outperform the best of the breeds in both thermal grease and pads measurably.
COOL-BOND® is another innovation of thermal interface materials that provides immediate bond strength and in-situ curing to achieve >1000 psi thermal adhesive bond for heatsink and heatspreader attachment for thermal management.
Poor thermal management leads to more than 50% of electronic failures. AIT pioneered the first phase-change thermal adhesives in the early 1990's. The products include many innovative forms of paste and film thermal adhesives designed to both optimize heat transfer and the reliability of the electronic devices during thermal cycling.
The failure rate increases exponentially with the increase in junction temperature. Ability to transfer and dissipate heat generated at the chip level directly affects the system's reliability. The failure rate of an electronic device doubles with every 10°C increase in chip junction temperature.
Efficient thermal transfer depends directly on the ability of thermal interface material to fill in all interfacial voids and avoid creating internal voids of their own besides having outstanding thermal conductivity. All of AIT thermal interface materials of thermal adhesives, thermal greases, thermal gels and compressible phase-change thermal pads are engineered and manufactured to perfecting the satisfying these criteria.
In side-by-side performance bench-mark of thermal interface material below, COOL-SILVER™ thermal grease, thermal gel, and COOL-SILVER™ thermal pads have demonstrated more than 2-4°C lower junction temperature for the same medium performance CPU. The same applications for higher performance CPU and processors will extract even more dramatic thermal improvements and thus faster clock speed and lower junction temperatures.
AIT: "Every °C in junction termperature counts in device reliability".
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