Beating the Heat: How The New Generation of Thermally Conductive Plastics are Changing Power Electronics

摘要

Thermally conductive thermoplastics with conductivities up to 20 W/mK allow packaging alternatives for power electronics. These plastics can be processed with standard injection molding equipment providing high speed, low-cost packaging and substrates. Historically, power electronics packaging has relied on ceramics, metallic alloys and ceramic or metal matrix composites to manage or withstand the heat generated from power devices. Conventional plastics are inherent thermal insulators and tend to localize or concentrate thermal energy resulting in a temperature rise greater than the softening, melting or degradation temperature of the plastic. Thermally conductive thermoplastics are suited for the portion of power electronic packaging applications where the thermal conductivity and heat transfer design is sufficient to keep the temperature rise below the thermal stability of the plastic.