Posted: August 7th, 2008
To quantify reliability parameters, accelerated life tests are performed on electronic devices, including all thermal materials, including thermal interface materials. Most new materials are implemented before enough testing time has passed to mimic a typical lifetime and...
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Posted: July 31st, 2008
Solder TIMs are the bonding and joining material used to connect small, powerful dies to their substrates. Some of these dies are exposed to severe temperature conditions which cycle into opposite extremes during device operation. ...
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Posted: July 24th, 2008
The data is in! Indium thermal interface materials (TIMs) have been put through the rigors of reliability testing and been proven to pass the typical as well as atypical tests required by the thermal materials industry. span...
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Posted: July 16th, 2008
As previously posted, Indium’s Table of Specialty Alloys and Solders contains hundreds of solder alloys used as thermal interface materials and for each of them, we have listed melting temperatures. The method by which these were calculated is a repeatable...
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Posted: July 15th, 2008
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...
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Posted: July 14th, 2008
At some point in our lives each of us has played the “What’s your favorite” game. “What’s your favorite…sport? What’s your favorite….Ice cream?” Well, I want to play the, “What’s your favorite span...
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Posted: July 8th, 2008
Indium Corporation’s industry leading semiconductor bloggers are hosting a Meet the Bloggers span style="font-size:...
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Posted: July 7th, 2008
Have you ran efficiency tests on your thermal interface materials and received unexpectedly low results? How confident are you that the resistance generated is actually at the thermal interface material?
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Posted: July 3rd, 2008
When I need any information on a direct attach solder thermal interface material, my first line of defense is my solder alloy directory, also known as the A title="Indium Homepage contains Table of Specialy Alloys and Solders describing alloys for...
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Posted: July 2nd, 2008
As a Thermal Interface materials supplier, we are always looking for the next best material we can offer the market which will really fill a need. Over a year ago now Indium’s Bob Jarrett came up with a new...
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Posted: July 1st, 2008
Looking for ways to troubleshoot or optimize your Thermal Interface materials? One method which we have contrived to determine the performance of your thermal stack-up excluding the thermal interface material is to use a liquid metal. This is a...
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Posted: June 30th, 2008
Many of my customers are now getting their minds wrapped around the idea of using liquid metals as TIMs. Until they actually have the personal experience of working with it however, they don’t fully grasp what it is...
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Posted: June 25th, 2008
Summer is here along with the heat waves that come with it. I am personally prepared with central air and barely-there clothing for when the heat gets most intense; but are my electronic gadgets as prepared?
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Posted: June 24th, 2008
My Co-Worker, Mike Fenner wrote an article in the June 2008 issue of OnBoard Technology (A Great Resource of SMT Electronics Literature). His article, A title="Mike Fenner Soldering auto...
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Posted: June 18th, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised to see in the Summer 2008 edition of Thermal News, a thermally enhanced package was highlighted for its design by StratEdge. StratEdge, with its forward-looking design has used the materials I have recommended for...
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Posted: June 17th, 2008
Now I know you may be wondering why I have been slacking with my blog postings to the extent that you haven’t seen anything new in weeks, but I assure you that I will return to my regimented posting schedule right...
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Posted: May 29th, 2008
Just like the yearly event which occurred in my grade school, new books were delivered to my door in their shiny cellophane wrapping just waiting for the unearthing of new data. In my book order was a new...
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Posted: May 28th, 2008
In this month’s edition of SMT magazine, Craig Hunter wrote a fantastic article about Mosfets and the transition they have made over time. These components have transitioned both in size and in thermal design, today requiring...
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Posted: May 27th, 2008
Happenings in India:
I heard of...
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Posted: May 21st, 2008
I just submitted my proposal for the Thermal Management and Technology Symposium 2008 to be held this September 25 and...
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Posted: May 20th, 2008
Today I learned a fact that I have talked about previously, but never been frustrated enough by it to write about it. I’m not in the industry to bash my competition, but today I was working with a competitor...
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Posted: May 15th, 2008
Enjoy reading my postings about my experience with cooling devices? Want to read more? My blog can come to you automatically if you substribe to my thermal blog website! For more information on this, see the subscribe link.br...
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Posted: May 14th, 2008
Our engineering group recently recieved a personal win when a prospective customer we have been working with for years finally took notice of out Au/Sn advancements and agreed to run a full evaluation of them for their upcoming product...
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Posted: May 13th, 2008
Pure indium or indium alloys are used to form hermetic seals that also conduct heat. Indium washers are often soldered around lenses which are metallized with gold.
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Posted: May 8th, 2008
Have you seen the statement on Indium’s product data sheet for liquid metals that says...
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Posted: May 6th, 2008
Metal Clad Thermal interface materials
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Posted: May 5th, 2008
The high thermal conductivity of metals is a result of energy transfer by free (or valence) electrons. These mobile electrons conduct electricity and thermal energy. For metals, the ratio of the thermal conductivity to the electrical conductivity is the Lorenz constant or the Weidemann-Franz ratio (L = κ/σT ~...
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Posted: May 2nd, 2008
Calculating the thermal conductivity of an alloy is not done by taking an average (or weighted average) of its elemental constituents. When two metals are mixed, their properties dramatically change, often in ways which would be difficult to speculate.
For example, the thermal conductivity of silver metal...
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Posted: May 1st, 2008
The typical extreme device needs an advanced thermal interface material to keep the interface cool while the device generates extreme amounts of heat. As discussed in my previous posting, the interface material chosen for extreme conditions often melts at a very high temperature so that it remains solid...
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Posted: April 29th, 2008
The most common metal thermal interface materials are made from indium materials which melt between 100C to 200C.
Some power devices I have come across desperately want to make the step toward metal interface materials, but cannot use them in the traditional sense because the operating...
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Posted: April 22nd, 2008
As many other companies are “going green” so can you with the right thermal interface material. Are you using indium materials now and collecting wadded up balls of scrap indium in your top desk drawer (As I’ve seen many customers doing already)? Worse yet, are you discarding...
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Posted: April 21st, 2008
You may have noticed that the appearance of Indium’s thermal website has changed and now includes a list of thermal certified Indium employees.
If you have seen this, it is likely that you have wondered what it means. As members of Indium’s world-wide thermal...
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Posted: April 15th, 2008
A recent topic which has come up in the soldering world has been the push for halogen-free or halide-free fluxes. There are many reasons customers are asking for these and for the past months, developing halogen-free fluxes has received a lot of attention from Indium.
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Posted: April 7th, 2008
Grease is gooey. When used as a thermal interface material, bigger is not better. Grease adds high amounts of resistance when used in excess.
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Posted: April 1st, 2008
Carbon nanutubes are being studied as a high performing thermal interface material, but metal TIMs hold their elite position today since they are mass manufacturable.
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Posted: March 28th, 2008
Yesterday I replaced the TIM 2 pad in my laptop with an indium preform TIM
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Posted: March 27th, 2008
thermal resistance is the sum of the thermal impedance...
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Posted: March 14th, 2008
Recently I have seen a lot of inquiries on thermal interface materials for burn-in applications.
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Posted: March 13th, 2008
Thermal Interface Material Modeling
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Posted: March 13th, 2008
A single thermal interface material that survives multiple insertions.
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Posted: February 21st, 2008
Jordan Ross to present on Metal Thermal Interface Materials in the Electronics Industry
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Posted: February 18th, 2008
Metal Thermal Interface Materials in high power LEDs.
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Posted: February 3rd, 2008
Simply stated, YES.
In effort to stay on top of industry technology I spend as much time as I can afford attempting to learn about the current thermal solutions being used on various devices. Light-Emitting Diodes have long been controversial regarding their requirement (or non-requirement as the case...
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Posted: February 3rd, 2008
In a past entry, I discussed the characteristic formation of surface oxides on indium and the various methods by which to remove these to achieve a soldered indium interface. A related property of indium is its ability to cold weld to itself. The value of this for a...
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Posted: January 7th, 2008
Understanding Creep Deformation in Laser Diode/LED Assemblies
The assembly designs of laser and high-power light emitting diodes (LED) demand tight dimensional control under high thermal loads. The deflections and residual stresses caused by the differential thermal expansion of the materials in the stack up and the deflections are dauntingly...
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Posted: December 21st, 2007
The word Creep is not something an engineer wants to hear when designing a metal TIM into their Laser Diode Stack up. But is creep really an issue, and do we really understand creep when talking about indium? The answer is relative. Attached you will find...
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Posted: November 16th, 2007
Designers are always seeking the latest and greatest performance material which will enhance the performance of their hot devices. Still they often choose materials which return second-rate results, relying on the materials they are familiar with only out of routine. This also keeps them from accepting new materials,...
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Posted: October 15th, 2007
Over the past few months I have received many inquiries from engineers who are just beginning to consider metal alloys as thermal interface materials. In looking at their existing stack-up, more and more are beginning to realize that the bottleneck in improving thermal performance of their device is through...
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Posted: October 15th, 2007
Usage of In-alloy Thermal Interface materials in the burn-in stage:
Lets define a burn-in application as one where the package is tested for functionality. In this process, every package makes contact with a heat sink/spreader for heat dissipation. Since the package cannot make direct contact with a heatsink, a Thermal...
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Posted: October 15th, 2007
The International Microelectronics Packaging Society sponsored the fifteenth annual Advanced Technology Workshop on Thermal Management in San Jose CA USA, on September 24-27. This very successful Workshop included 34 technical presentations from speakers from around the world. The total of 129 attendees included thermal engineers...
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Posted: October 4th, 2007
Alot can be learned about thermal interface materials from an overclocker if you listen to them.
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Posted: August 22nd, 2007
There are formulas and graphs with this entry. Please email tim@indium.com for the additional information mentioned in this entry.
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Posted: July 31st, 2007
There are multiple types of thermal interface materials available, but due to its high thermal conductivity, compressibility, and ease of application, indium metal is one of the most desired thermal interface materials. There are several ways to apply the indium interface but if ultra low resistance is required, soldering...
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Posted: July 31st, 2007
Suggestions
1) Know your assembly
You’d be amazed by the things engineers don’t know about the project they are working on. Depending on the method of attachment, key criteria may include clamping pressure, die curvature, lid surface variation, alignment tolerance, burn-in temperature and time, as well as x and y dimensions...
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Posted: July 9th, 2007
Comments on Coollabratory Liquid TIM
http://reviews.pimprig.com/cooling/coollaboratory_liquid_metal.php
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Posted: June 19th, 2007
By: Pat Ryan
Do you know who the father of heat transfer is? You probably know techniques for heat dissipation in electronic devices can include heatsinks and fans, but did you know in 1822, a French mathematical physicist developed the equation we use today to analyze conductive heat transfer in...
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Posted: June 13th, 2007
Not many people realize that Indium is actually 4 times softer than lead. In this picture you can see that with just a standard vise I could compress this penny into a .004" thick piece of Indium. ...
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Posted: June 13th, 2007
New TIM Blog
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