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rlcZONE Products for the week of March 24, 2008
IMS Says…
B-Series Therma-Bridge, Thermal Management Device
International Manufacturing Services, Inc. (IMS) introduced the B-Series Therma-Bridge as a simple and cost effective thermal management device. The B-Series Therma-Bridge uses a thermally conductive Aluminum Nitride chip with metalized terminals to transport heat from one location to another, thus enhancing overall board performance. IMS makes the Therma-Bridge in numerous sizes and thickness, allowing users to choose the part which best fits their heat management needs.
Since 1974, IMS has been supplying the electronics manufacturing industries with highest quality thick and thin film chip resistors, terminations, filters and attenuators.
EN-Genius Says…
 This is a cool product, both literally and figuratively. With Apple's iPhone setting the pace, we're likely to see more battery-powered portables than ever before. These ultra-compact nomadic systems will inevitably run faster processors, pack multiple processors, have larger memory arrays, and package more devices. As always, thermal management will be a significant hurdle in their design.
IMS's Therma-Bridge surface-mount heat pipes look like just the ticket for small-scale thermal management. Although heat pipes have been around since the beginning of engineering time, I've never seen heat pipe products this small.
In use, one side of a Therma-Bridge attaches to your heat source, and the other side goes to a nearby thermal plane or conventional heatsink. The aluminum-nitride Therma-Bridge, available in standard sizes and thicknesses, can also be custom sized. Standard SMT package sizes are 0505, 0805, 1005, 1206, 2010, 2512, 2525, and 3725.
What's more, IMS supplies these parts with RoHS-compatible (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) PtAg (platinum silver) terminals. Alternatively, you can order them with solder-coated PtAg terminals. The former permits epoxy or solder attachment, while the latter is strictly for soldering only.
Depending on thickness and termination style, they’re priced at from $1.41 to $1.95 each in quantities of 100 to 249.
Century-Old Material
  By the way, aluminum nitride, sometimes referred to as AlN, is a relatively new technical ceramics material. Although it was discovered over a century ago, only recently has AlN found a home in electronics packaging, thanks to its outstanding dielectric properties, high thermal conductivity, and low tempco. Indeed, its thermal expansion coefficient is very close to that of the silicon devices it's designed to protect. Properly attached, a Therma-Bridge should stay put. The wrap-around terminals will likely make it relatively easy to solder down, too, whether it’s to a PCB pad or nearby via.
 The table shows approximate thermal resistance values, in °C/W, and the equivalent thermal conductivity, normalized to chip size (in mW/°C) for the various Therma-Bridge sizes and thicknesses. These values are based on the nominal thermal resistance of aluminum-nitride.
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