High-Performance, Lightweight Ceramics for Critical Thermal Management in Electronic Devices

High-thermal conductivity and lightweight materials are desired in innovative thermal management designs for dissipating heat more efficiently in today’s high power electronic devices, particularly those used in avionics. TPG* (thermal pyrolytic graphite) thermal management materials and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) products offered by Momentive are two unique synthetic high-performance thermally-conductive ceramic materials with low density and similarly-layered crystal structures.

TPG thermal management materials are comprised of highly-oriented, stacked planes that are thermally and electrically conductive. These materials typically exhibit excellent in-plane thermal conductivity (>1500 W/mK), up to four times the conductivity of copper. Metal-encapsulated TPG materials can achieve high-thermal conductivity from the TPG core while the metal shell can provide good mechanical integrity and protection against the environment. Momentive’s proprietary bonding technology can allow close and strong joints to be formed between TPG materials and dissimilar metals, including Al, Cu, WCu, MoCu, etc. In addition, the wide variety of TPG-compatible metals enables the TPG composite to be plated and soldered for direct die attachment, the CTE to be matched to semiconductors, and flexibility for off-plane connectivity.

The following TPG composite categories will be discussed in detail during this presentation: TC1050* heat spreader, TMP-FX thermal strap, and TMP-EX heat sink.

h-BN, which has similar layered crystal structures to graphite, is an attractive filler for improving thermal conductivity while maintaining the electrical insulation of thermal interface materials (TIM) used in electronic devices. The agglomerate BN particle has shown to exhibit much better isotropic thermal performance than platelet BN powder. The impact of compounding conditions on the morphology of agglomerate BN, which is critical to final composite thermal performance, is studied herein. It is demonstrated, when proper compounding conditions are applied, the thermal conductivity of the BN loaded TIM can be improved tremendously.

*TPG and TC1050 are trademarks of Momentive Performance Materials Inc.