Eutectic Solder TIMs in Pulsed Power Packages

Posted by Amanda M. Hartnett

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Heat generation in a power chip. Chip can be cooled by a careful selection of solder TIM and heat sink.

Devices with pulsing power are often among the most critical to cool due to the temperature-sensitive films they are packaged with. If these films overheat, the resistance running through the package may become altered which complicates the device performance.

There are various common heat sink/solder TIM combinations to choose from depending on the nature of the device. For instance, in the most difficult cases, (those with high frequencies and long thermal cycles) a popular choice is a Copper/Tungsten heat sink used with a TIM closely matched in CTE. One possible choice is gold/germanium preforms, which can be used to create a hermetic package. When the thermal requirements of the pulsing device change however, such as going to a shorter thermal cycle, often the CTE stresses decline and other choices (which are often more economical) in heat sink and solder choice become available.

If you would like help designing your heat sink/TIM design in a pulsed power package, please contact an indium application engineer for material suggestion and design advice.

Share your thoughts by COMMENTING. Or, email the blogger at ahartnett@indium.com.

Posted by Amanda M. Hartnett at 13:31 PM (July 15th, 2008)

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Comments (add your comment)

Steve Pereira:

I’m doing a transient thermal analysis of the package which may use Indalloy #7 solder. I cannot find the specific heat for this material on your web site.

Do you have the value and a reference?

Thanks
Steve

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