2023 Thermal Interface Material Innovations Webinar: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

2023 Thermal Interface Material Innovations Webinar: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Adam Luczywo:
Hello and thank you for joining today's webinar on Parker Chomerics' 2023 Thermal Interface Material Innovations. Just a few housekeeping details for everyone before we begin. Please be sure to set yourself on mute if you are not already. After the webinar is over, we will have time for a live question and answer session. If you have questions during the presentation, which we do encourage, please feel free to type them in the Q&A box whenever you think of it, and we will make every effort to address your question at the end. And finally, not to worry if you miss any of the presentation, this webinar will be recorded and a link to view it on your own. Time will be sent to you following the live presentation. Now let's welcome today's speakers Ben Nudelman, Jonathan Mazur and K.J. Sterling of Parker Chomerics.

Ben Nudelman:
Hi everyone and welcome to the webinar. My name is Ben Nudelman and I'm the global market manager for Consumer Electronics for Chomerics, and I've been with the team for five years.

Jonathan Mazur:
Hello, my name is Jonathan Mazur. I'm one of the applications engineers here at Parker Chomerics.

KJ Sterling:
And my name is K.J. Sterling, and I'm also an applications engineer at Parker Chomerics. Thank you for joining our webinar today about the new thermal interface materials that we have launched over the past several months. After a brief introduction to who we are, we will briefly talk about the engineering challenges that influence our material development.

Jonathan Mazur:
Following that, we will introduce our new materials and provide details about all five materials, their properties and examples of their ideal applications.

Ben Nudelman:
And finally, we'll provide a technology roadmap and answer any questions you may have. As a reminder, please feel free to use the Q&A feature to ask questions at any point in the webinar, and we'll be sure to answer your questions at the end. First, just a quick note about who we are. Parker Chomerics is a division of Parker Hannifin, and we are the global leader in the development and application of EMI shielding, electrical grounding and thermal interface materials. Our core competencies are in material science and process technology. Chomerics offers a market driven product development cycle featuring integrated electronics housings that we are proud to offer our custom engineered solutions and integrated global supply chain management to all of our customers. Chomerics technologies fall into four general product families. The first is electromagnetic interference or EMI shielding and grounding. This family includes all gaskets, metal products, paints, coatings, specialty materials and laminates that are used in electronics to protect signals from being disrupted by external or internal frequencies. This family also includes all materials used to create an intentional electrical path for electrical grounding.

KJ Sterling:
The second product family is thermal interface materials. The main focus of today's webinar. These materials are found on many printed circuit boards and are designed to transfer heat in order to prevent electronics from overheating. They include thermal gap pads, thermal dispensable gels, phase change materials, thermal insulators, thermally conductive adhesive tapes and greases.

Jonathan Mazur:
Integrated in Optical Solutions is the third product family and uses our expertise in automated assembly to make tens of millions of complex parts every year for our customers. And lastly, engineered plastics round out the portfolio. Engineering plastics include both electrically conductive and non-conductive injected, molded polymers.

Ben Nudelman:
So I'm sure we're all somewhat familiar on how thermal interface materials or TIMS work. Successful thermal management of high power electronic components such as single or multi-chip modules, integrated circuits. Et cetera. With high heat dissipation, ratings requires careful design, engineering. The most important goal in electronics cooling is to maintain junction temperatures from rising above prescribed levels.

KJ Sterling:
Junction temperature is a good predictor of the useful life of the component. Thermal interface materials bridge the interface between hot components and a chassis or heatsink assembly. As you can see here, the thermal interface materials helps to increase heat transfer and keep components cooler.

Jonathan Mazur:
Specifically, thermal interface materials displace air in the microscopic or macroscopic interstitial gaps. Air in these gaps serve as an insulator and prevents effective cooling. In the case of the new materials we will be presenting today. The gaps typically range from four thousandths to 200 thousandths of an inch or 0.1mm to five millimetre. If you've joined us for some of our more recent webinars, you'll know that Chomerics products are relevant to a large number of industries and markets. Trends such as longer product life with greater reliability and higher power output are leading to greater demand for thermal interface materials.

KJ Sterling:
Specifically, the expansion of 5G and Iot devices and infrastructure supporting them have been leading the way in the telecom market. Vehicle safety and automotive E-mobility are buzzwords that are leading to critical computing devices being used in every vehicle on the road, especially the radar and LIDAR modules. Used in ADAS or advanced driver assistance systems. Smart home and connectivity within consumer devices and personal health means that we are surrounded by even more technology that must carefully control heat output.

Ben Nudelman:
Lastly, one of the largest growth trends has been the proliferation of alternative energy generation and storage modules. Many companies are following global trends and looking to support the significant shift towards energy storage and controlled output. Regardless of the end applications, thermal interface materials are increasingly becoming a key design consideration early in the design cycle.

KJ Sterling:
Parker Chomerics has an extensive thermal interface material portfolio spanning several families of products. But the two product categories that have seen the most innovation in over the last few years are thermal gap filler pads and one component dispensable thermal gels.

Jonathan Mazur:
During today's webinar, we will introduce two newly launched thermal gap pads and three newly launched thermal gels. We wanted to take a minute to specify exactly what is included in these categories.

Ben Nudelman:
Thermal pads are elastomeric or putty like pads that range in thickness from about ten thousandths of an inch or 0.25mm, up to 200 thousandths of an inch or five millimeters, and sometimes even greater than that. These materials are meant to take up gaps created by machining or assembly tolerances and help transfer heat between hot components and heat sinks or cooling features. They typically have a low compression force and are manufactured in rolls or sheets that can be cut to a unique size or shape.

KJ Sterling:
Thermal gels, on the other hand, are dispensable. One component fully cured materials that do not require any curing processes. They will not harden, become brittle, pump out or flow out due to vibration when used in proper operating or storage conditions. They maintain their physical and thermal properties throughout their entire product life and are ideal for a high volume, high reliability applications.

Jonathan Mazur:
And we really must stress this. Thermal gels are different from the two component potting or encapsulation compounds because they do not undergo a curing process to achieve final material properties.

Ben Nudelman:
But what do all these trends really mean? For example, when customers look for higher thermal performance, what kinds of metrics are they looking for and what about softer materials?

Jonathan Mazur:
That's a great question, Ben. If we look back about a decade, 3 watt/mk was really at the high end of any of the ten performance needs. Devices could get by with a material that, by today's standards is pretty average. At this point, some applications are requiring thermal materials such as gap pads and dispensable gels to get to 6 or 8 watt/mk. And when it comes to softer materials, the lower the hardness, the better as applications get smaller and oftentimes more fragile. Designers are looking for materials that allow effective heat transfer, but with less required compression force. This often is associated with a material hardness of less than 40 Sure 00.

Ben Nudelman:
But what about lower cost, ease of automation and assembly integration?

KJ Sterling:
We know that lower cost materials are always desirable, but that doesn't just mean the raw material costs. Assembly and application costs are important to consider as well. Thermal gels are advantageous because they simplify the supply chain and can be easily integrated with automated dispensing equipment and cut down on application time, especially with higher flow rate materials. Gap pads are also embracing this trend, allowing for automated placement by vacuum integrated robots.

Jonathan Mazur:
Now let us get into the new materials that we have launched over the last few months. In the following slides, we will dive into the details of these materials. But here's a brief introduction.

KJ Sterling:
Within our gel family Gel 20, Gel 40NS and Gel 60HF are the newest materials. Gel 20 is a moderate conductivity material, but it's true benefit is its long-term reliability in harsh physical and vibration conditions.

Ben Nudelman:
Gel 40NS has been in the works for some time as we've seen an ever-growing trend of manufacturing and assembly facilities steering away from silicone materials or limiting their use. The suffix stands for non-silicone as this material utilizes a urethane binder.

Jonathan Mazur:
Gel 60HF is a high-performance heat transfer material at 6.2W/m kelvin but has the added benefit of a high flow rate indicated by the HF suffix.

KJ Sterling:
Pad 70TP is a high conductivity pad, but it is different from many of our other gap pad materials. The TP stands for thermal putty, meaning that this material will compress like a putty rather than a traditional elastomeric thermal pad.

Ben Nudelman:
And finally, Pad 80 represents the highest bulk thermal conductivity material that Chomerics currently has in the product family at 8.3W/m Kelvin.

Jonathan Mazur:
While many of the materials we continue to develop are either increasing the thermal conductivity or increasing the flow rate gel 20 bucks the trend a bit. It is not a high thermal conductivity material and is higher viscosity material than several other products in our GEL family because it was developed based on the specific demands handed down from several customers in a very specific industry. Thermal gels were originally developed for the automotive industry, and products like GEL 30 and Gel 45 have decades of use and automotive applications, but GEL 20 builds on the history of reliability and consistency.

KJ Sterling:
Specifically, GEL 20 was developed for the vibration and power cycling demands of automotive sensors and computational devices associated with ADAS and passenger safety and comfort systems. We push the testing limits for GEL 20, utilizing GMW and ETSI tests to make sure that it will continue to perform in vibrational applications, especially at larger gap sizes. We also tested it for long term exposure at the very limits of the operating temperature range, in this case 200°C, to ensure that there was no degradation of thermal performance, even in applications that would most likely not encounter these temperatures.

Jonathan Mazur:
Consider an adaptive cruise control or blind spot detection module on a car driving from San Diego to Texas through the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico on a hot day in July. There is no room for error for the modules to stop working because of overheating. Gel 20 is designed just for applications like this for long term automotive reliability.

Ben Nudelman:
Silicones provide many significant benefits as a binder material in thermal interface materials, specifically gels and gap pads. They're easy to work with, have a wide temperature range and are resistant to many chemicals and environmental conditions. However, there are some drawbacks, notably the potential for migration of small amounts of silicone oil that can be expelled from material when it is over compressed or put through rigorous thermal cycling, while the oils are generally not a problem, they may sometimes cause inconvenience while assembling other electronics components. This is where Gel 40NS comes in. From a dispensing and use perspective, it behaves just like the rest of the one component fully cured gels that Chomerics manufactures. The difference is a urethane binder that will not bleed any silicone oils. Gel 40NS has uses across every industry where limitations are placed on silicone material usage, but has seen particular interest in the data storage space for devices such as solid-state drives and also in any application where thermal materials are used near sensors, cameras or optical equipment. This is because silicone oils may interfere with the proper signal transfer across fiber optic or optical connectors.

KJ Sterling:
Gel 60HF or high flow was developed for very high-volume applications where the dispensing process is a key total cost consideration. Gels provide an advantage over pads because of their flexibility in the dispensing and application process. But in cases where a lot of material is needed per unit or there are many units, the dispensing process needs to be carefully looked at. This material has a flow rate very similar to or even higher than the two part materials, but with the advantage of no cure process required.

Jonathan Mazur:
For applications such as on consumer devices that are manufactured in the hundreds of thousands or millions of pieces, saving even a second or two on the assembly process can lead to significant cost savings. As with just about every Chomerics gel, Gel 60HF can be provided in larger volume containers such as one and five gallon pails. It can also be stenciled if needed, and provided in two different colors gray and black, depending on the preference of some automated vision equipment used to ensure accurate material placement.

KJ Sterling:
One of the major trends we talked about a few slides ago was softer materials as new high performance electrical components are designed and integrated onto compact printed circuit boards, Designers are looking for softer materials to make effective contact for heat transfer, but also materials that will not put too much strain on these components. The TP in Pad 70TP stands for thermal putty and means that this material will conform under loading almost like a gel, but is provided in pad form.

Ben Nudelman:
The putty, like properties of Pad 70TP does come with some drawbacks depending on the application. Because of these compression properties, it is meant for a single compression cycle. Unlike other pads that have some elastomeric properties and will bounce back after the load is removed. This pad will take an almost 100% compression set. It's not suggested where a housing or cover will need to be removed and then replaced onto the board several times. One unique property of Pad 70TP is that it can be provided with a fiberglass carrier in the middle of the material sandwiched on both sides by the ceramic filled silicone binder. This gives excellent contact and the ability to displace air very effectively upon compression.

Jonathan Mazur:
That being said, there are still plenty of applications where a very soft, high performance material is the right solution. Telecom applications and defense applications that have long product life and years between anticipated maintenance are two examples of where Pad 70TP may be the perfect solution.

Ben Nudelman:
And finally, we want to present pad 80. This is our highest bulk conductivity material in both the pad and the gel family and one that is applicable for just about every industry. It is available as thin as 20 thousandths of an inch or 0.5mm and as thick as 200 thousandths of an inch or more than five millimeters.

Jonathan Mazur:
As with other pads, it can be provided with pressure sensitive adhesive for additional adhesive properties during the assembly process. It can also be die cut to specific sizes and unique shapes. While not as soft as Pad 70TP, it does have a low compression force and will not impart high loads onto sensitive components.

KJ Sterling:
The hope is that this material is used wherever a lot of heat dissipation is needed. We know that 8.3W/m Kelvin is pretty high for most applications right now, but it won't be for so long. Applications will get hotter because chips and heat generating components will dissipate. More heat and pad 80 will hopefully be the go to material for applications that need to rely on the reliability that is associated with kramaric's thermal products.

Ben Nudelman:
Some of you may have seen this roadmap before. Simply because we've launched these products does not mean we are done designing for the next generation of thermal interface materials. As we continue to work with you, we continue to develop materials that help to fill in the gaps and solve the problems designers and engineers will face in years to come.

Jonathan Mazur:
Over the last couple of years, you've asked for lower cost gels and gap pads, so we develop gel 37 and pad 30. You asked for higher thermal conductivity gels and gap pads. So we developed gel 75 and pad 60.

KJ Sterling:
This year you also asked for non silicone thermal gels, so we developed gel 40NS. You also asked for high conductivity gap pads, so we developed both pads 70TP and pad 80. You ask for high flow rate materials, so we developed GEL 60HF.

Ben Nudelman:
Our technology roadmap is ever changing and is driven by our customers and the feedback we hear from you. In line with the engineering challenges that we've talked about, I can share that we'll continue to expand our high conductivity portfolio. We'll also be adding materials meant for thin bond lines and very tight tolerances. These materials are already in development and you are all key partners to our product development roadmap. So please reach out to us as we are constantly looking for feedback on next generation needs and requirements. And with that, let's get right into the questions. Please feel free to continue asking questions using the Q&A feature and we will do our best to answer them over the next several minutes. If for some reason we don't get to your questions, we'll be sure to reach out with an answer.

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