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Comparison of Carbon-based Nanostructures with Commercial Products as Thermal Interface Materials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Michael Rosshirt
Affiliation:
MRosshirt@scu.edu, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
Drazen Fabris
Affiliation:
DFabris@scu.edu, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
Christopher Cardenas
Affiliation:
CCardenas@scu.edu, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
Patrick Wilhite
Affiliation:
PWilhite@scu.edu, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
Thanh Tu
Affiliation:
thuc_thanh@yahoo.com, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
Cary Y. Yang
Affiliation:
CYang@scu.edu, Center for Nanostructures Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States
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Abstract

Heat dissipation in electronics packaging can be highly dependent on Thermal Interface Materials (TIM). TIM contact, compliance, and conductivity can be the dominant limiting factors in the overall conduction heat transfer across the interface. Mixing multiwall Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), which have high thermal conductivity, with other thermally conducting materials holds great promise as TIM fillers and has been shown to have higher thermal performance than commercial TIM ‘1’. Such mixtures possess greater thermal conductivity as a result of increased thermal conduction paths through highly conductive, high aspect ratio CNTs.

In this work, we develop and test an advanced apparatus based on the ASTM D5470-06 standard to measure thermal interface resistance. Our experimental findings quantify the thermal performance trends of industry-standard TIM Arctic Silver® 5 along with hybrid TIM mixtures of Arctic Silver®5 and varying weight ratios of CNTs. Early experimental findings show that Arctic Silver®5 mixed with 0.5 to 1% multiwall CNT by weight may improve thermal conductivity over pure Arctic Silver®5.The goal of this research is to investigate the viability of integrating CNTs with commercial products as improved TIM for electronic cooling in chip packages.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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References

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