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Materials for Advanced Packaging pp 511–535Cite as

Thermal Interface Materials

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Abstract

Increasing electronic device performance has historically been accompanied by increasing power and increasing on-chip power density both of which present a cooling challenge. Thermal interface material (TIM) plays a key role in reducing the package thermal resistance and the thermal resistance between the electronic device and the external cooling components. This chapter reviews the progress made in the TIM development in the past 5 years. Rheology-based modeling and design is discussed for the widely used polymeric TIMs. The recently emerging technology of nanoparticles and nanotubes is also discussed for TIM applications. This chapter also includes TIM testing methodology and concludes with suggestion for the future TIM development directions.

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Abbreviations

A :

Acceleration factor

A c :

Actual contact area

A nc :

Non-contact area occupied by air gaps

BLT:

Bondline thickness

C :

Empirical constant in Eq. (12.7)

DF:

Density factor

E a :

Activation energy

G :

Shear modulus

G′:

Storage shear modulus

G″:

Loss shear modulus

H :

Hardness

K :

Consistency index in Eq. (12.5)

k c :

Thermal conductivity for composite

k m :

Thermal conductivity of the polymer matrix

k p :

Thermal conductivity of particles (fillers)

k TIM :

Thermal conductivity of the TIM

m :

Mean asperity slope

P :

Pressure

r :

Radius of the substrate

R b :

Thermal boundary resistance

R bulk :

Bulk thermal resistance

R c :

Contact resistance of TIM

R cs :

Contact resistance between two bare solids

RcTIM :

Contact resistance of an ideal TIM

R jc :

Junction to case thermal resistance

R TIM :

Thermal resistance of TIM (same as impedance)

Ψ cs :

Case to sink thermal resistance

Ψ J–a :

Junction to ambient thermal resistance

Ψ sa :

Sink to ambient thermal resistance

α :

Biot number

σ :

Surface roughness

τ y :

Yield stress of the TIM

ϕ :

Volume fraction of particles in TIMs

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Ravi Prasher Ph.D. & Chia-Pin Chiu Ph.D.

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  1. Ravi Prasher Ph.D.
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  2. Chia-Pin Chiu Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Chia-Pin Chiu Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Henkel China Co., Ltd, Shanghai, Shanghai, China

    Daniel Lu

  2. Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    C.P. Wong

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Prasher, R., Chiu, CP. (2017). Thermal Interface Materials. In: Lu, D., Wong, C. (eds) Materials for Advanced Packaging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45098-8_12

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