Bergquist Thermally Conductive Insulators
Managing the increasing power densities and heat generated by individual components within electronic devices is an essential consideration for designers to ensure performance and reliability. Unless effectively dissipated, excess heat can cause temperature spikes and shorten the lifespan of a device. This is why thermal management is an important design aspect of all electronics.
Bergquist offers a range of thermally conductive insulators to help ensure safe and reliable operation in high-performance applications. These products provide superior thermal conductivity and are suitable for a wide variety of applications. TC series insulators are manufactured using a high-performance thermoset material with excellent cut through resistance and thermal conductivity. They are available in a range of thicknesses and widths to suit different requirements.
The Power of Thermally Conductive Insulators of a material measures how easily it can pass heat through the material, and is typically given as a value expressed as the inverse of the product of the material’s permeability and its specific temperature. Typical values for insulating materials range from 10 to 1000 W/m.K, with low values indicating good performance. Ideally, the insulating material should be both highly conductive and have low specific heat capacity.
A material’s specific heat capacity measures how much energy it takes to raise the temperature of a kilogram of the material by 1oC. A higher specific heat capacity means the material is more thermally dense and provides greater insulation.
Graphene is one of the most promising candidates for a top-tier insulator, but producing it on a large scale can be challenging and costly. However, further research is being conducted to improve the scalability of this technology and make it more affordable.
When it comes to managing the heat that is generated by electronic devices, there are many challenges. One of the most important is to ensure that any excess heat is transported away from critical components and system hot spots, and ultimately dissipated into the ambient environment. Failure to do so can lead to overheating and the failure of the device.
As the technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, manufacturers face new and complex thermal challenges. This is particularly true of the advanced 3D integrated circuit technologies being explored in the industry for extending IC scaling and improving device functionality and power consumption.
A significant challenge for this technology is how to manage the heat that builds up between the stacked chips. In order to avoid potential defects, the heat generated by each layer of a stack must be adequately dissipated to prevent any excessive temperatures that can damage the underlying dies and other internal components.
To overcome this issue, manufacturers must use special gap filling materials that can provide the necessary thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity. These gap filling materials are usually made of a polymer with metal or inorganic electrically nonconductive fillers, and can be produced as standard or customized to meet customer needs. Typically, these materials are used in conjunction with thermal grease and provide an effective solution to the thermal challenge faced by 3D IC technology.