News

Core Technical Advantages

Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs)—materials designed to fill air gaps between heat-generating components (e.g., CPUs, IGBTs, LEDs) and heat sinks/coolers—are indispensable for managing heat in high-power electronics. Unlike direct metal-to-metal contact (which leaves 50-80% of surfaces uncontacted due to micro-roughness), TIMs eliminate air gaps (thermal conductivity of air: 0.026 W/m·K) and enable efficient heat transfer, addressing the thermal bottlenecks of EV powertrains, data center servers, and industrial motor drives.

Compared to traditional thermal greases (the most common low-cost TIM), advanced TIMs like metal matrix composites (MMCs) and phase-change materials (PCMs) deliver a 5-10x higher thermal conductivity (10-100 W/m·K vs. 1-4 W/m·K for greases). For example, a copper-silver MMC TIM (50 W/m·K) reduces thermal resistance between an EV IGBT and heat sink to 0.1 K/W, vs. 0.5 K/W for a thermal grease—cutting IGBT junction temperature by 40°C (from 150°C to 110°C) and extending component lifespan by 3x (from 10,000 to 30,000 hours).

In terms of stability and ease of use, PCM TIMs (which melt at 40-60°C to conform to surfaces) maintain consistent thermal resistance (<0.2 K/W) over 10,000 thermal cycles (-40°C to 125°C), vs. thermal greases (which dry out and degrade to 1.0 K/W after 5,000 cycles). This stability reduces maintenance costs for industrial equipment: a wind turbine using PCM TIMs requires TIM replacement every 5 years, vs. 2 years for greases.

TIMs also support miniaturization: thin-film TIMs (50-100 μm thick) reduce the overall height of electronic assemblies by 50% (from 2mm to 1mm) compared to thick greases (200-500 μm), enabling slimmer designs for laptops and wearable devices.

Key Technical Breakthroughs

Recent innovations in material composition, microstructural design, and manufacturing have addressed historical limitations of TIMs, such as low thermal conductivity, poor mechanical stability, and reworkability issues.

1. High-Conductivity Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs)

Traditional MMC TIMs (e.g., aluminum-silicon carbide) were limited by brittleness and high cost. The development of nanoparticle-reinforced MMCs (e.g., copper with 5% graphene nanoparticles) has increased thermal conductivity by 30% (from 40 W/m·K to 52 W/m·K) while maintaining ductility (elongation at break: 15% vs. 5% for traditional MMCs). These TIMs, used in Intel’s 4th Gen Xeon servers, reduce CPU junction temperature by 25°C under full load (300W), improving server reliability by 20% (MTBF: 1.2 million hours vs. 1 million hours).

Sintered metal TIMs (e.g., silver sinter paste) represent another breakthrough: they achieve 200-300 W/m·K thermal conductivity (near bulk silver’s 429 W/m·K) and form a permanent bond with components. Toyota’s EV powertrains use silver sinter TIMs for SiC MOSFETs, enabling operation at 175°C junction temperature (vs. 125°C for MMC TIMs) and reducing the size of cooling systems by 40%.

2. Phase-Change Materials (PCMs) with Enhanced Thermal Conductivity

Early PCMs (e.g., paraffin wax) had low thermal conductivity (<1 W/m·K), limiting their use in high-power applications. The integration of high-conductivity fillers (e.g., boron nitride, BN, nanoparticles) into PCMs has boosted thermal conductivity to 5-15 W/m·K. For example, a BN-reinforced PCM (10 W/m·K) used in NVIDIA’s H100 GPUs maintains thermal resistance of 0.15 K/W during 24/7 AI training (400W load), vs. 0.3 K/W for a pure paraffin PCM.

Shape-stabilized PCMs (SSPCMs)—where PCMs are encapsulated in porous materials like graphite foam—solve the leakage problem of traditional PCMs (which melt and flow). These SSPCMs retain 95% of their mass after 10,000 thermal cycles, making them suitable for outdoor electronics (e.g., 5G base stations) exposed to temperature fluctuations.

3. Flexible and Stretchable TIMs for Wearables/EVs

Wearable devices and EV battery packs require TIMs that conform to curved or moving surfaces. Silicone-based TIMs with carbon nanotube (CNT) fillers (thermal conductivity: 8 W/m·K) offer 100% stretchability (elongation at break: 100%) and maintain thermal resistance <0.3 K/W after 10,000 bending cycles (5mm radius). Apple’s Watch Ultra 2 uses this TIM to cool its S9 SiP chip, ensuring stable performance during intense workouts (when chip power rises to 2W).

For EV battery packs, thermal gap pads (flexible TIMs with 5-20 W/m·K conductivity) replace rigid TIMs, adapting to the uneven surfaces of battery cells. Tesla’s 4680 battery packs use gap pads with 15 W/m·K conductivity, reducing temperature variation between cells to <5°C (vs. 10°C for rigid TIMs) and preventing thermal runaway.

Disruptive Applications

TIMs are transforming industries where thermal management directly impacts performance, reliability, and safety—from EVs and data centers to industrial equipment and consumer electronics.

1. Electric Vehicle (EV) Powertrains and Battery Packs

EV inverters and battery packs are the largest adopters of advanced TIMs. Volkswagen’s ID.4 EV uses a copper-aluminum MMC TIM (35 W/m·K) in its inverter, reducing IGBT junction temperature by 35°C and improving inverter efficiency by 2% (from 97% to 99%)—extending EV range by 15km (from 450km to 465km) for a 77 kWh battery.

In battery packs, LG Energy Solution’s 4680 cells use a BN-reinforced PCM TIM (8 W/m·K) to manage heat during fast charging (350kW): the TIM limits cell temperature rise to 20°C (from 25°C with traditional greases), enabling 10-80% charging in 18 minutes (vs. 22 minutes) and extending battery lifespan by 20% (from 1,200 to 1,440 cycles).

2. Data Center Servers and AI Accelerators

Data centers rely on TIMs to cool high-power CPUs and AI chips. AMD’s EPYC 9654 server CPU (32-core, 300W) uses a silver sinter TIM (250 W/m·K), reducing thermal resistance to 0.08 K/W and allowing the CPU to run at full clock speed (3.7GHz) indefinitely—vs. 3.4GHz with a thermal grease (which causes throttling due to overheating). This performance boost increases server throughput by 10% for cloud computing workloads.

NVIDIA’s H100 GPU (400W) uses a graphene-reinforced PCM TIM (12 W/m·K) to cool its 8 HBM3 stacks: the TIM maintains HBM temperature at 85°C (vs. 95°C with a grease), ensuring stable memory bandwidth (3.35 TB/s) and reducing AI training time for large models (e.g., GPT-4) by 15%.

3. Industrial Motor Drives and Renewable Energy

Industrial motor drives (used in pumps, conveyors, and HVAC systems) use TIMs to improve reliability. ABB’s ACS880 drive (500kW) uses a shape-stabilized PCM TIM (6 W/m·K), reducing the temperature of its IGBT module by 30°C and extending MTBF from 80,000 to 120,000 hours—cutting unplanned downtime for a factory by 40% (from 50 to 30 hours per year).

In solar inverters, SMA Solar’s Sunny Tripower 15kW inverter uses a thin-film CNT TIM (10 W/m·K) to cool its SiC MOSFETs: the TIM’s 50μm thickness reduces inverter volume by 25% (from 15 to 11.25 liters) and improves efficiency by 0.5% (from 98.7% to 99.2%)—increasing annual energy harvest from a 10kW solar array by 50 kWh.

4. Consumer Electronics and Wearables

Consumer devices use TIMs to balance performance and miniaturization. Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra uses a silicone-CNT TIM (7 W/m·K) to cool its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip: the TIM’s flexibility conforms to the phone’s slim design (7.6mm thickness) while reducing chip temperature by 20°C during gaming (when power rises to 8W), preventing frame rate drops (from 60fps to 55fps with a grease).

For wearables, Fitbit’s Charge 6 uses a phase-change film TIM (5 W/m·K) to cool its heart rate sensor: the TIM’s thin profile (80μm) and low thermal resistance (0.25 K/W) ensure accurate sensor readings (±1 bpm error) even during intense workouts, vs. ±3 bpm with a thermal pad.