Phase Change Materials

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Thermal Phase Change Materials
Product name	Specific Gravity	Thickness Range (mm)	Thermal Conductivity (W/m·K)	Thermal Impedance @ no shim (˚C·cm2/W)	Volume Resistivity (ohm·cm)
LTM Series	1.8	NA	1.8-2.4	0.12-0.14	3.0×10¹⁵
PCM45F Series	2.2	0.20-1.00	2.0-2.5	0.09-0.12	8.2×10¹⁴
PTM5000 Series	2.3	0.20-1.00	3.5-4.5	0.06-0.08	2.1×10¹⁴
PTM6000 Series	2.3	0.20-1.00	3.5-4.5	0.06-0.08	2.1×10¹⁴
PTM 6000HV	2.6	0.20-1.00	5.2	0.09	2.1×10¹⁴
PTM 7000	2.7	0.20-1.00	6.5	0.06	2.1×10¹⁴
PTM 7900	2.8	0.20-1.00	8.0	0.045	2.1×10¹⁴
PTM 7950	2.8	0.25	8.5	0.04	2.1×10¹⁴

What are some typical PCM applications?

Typical phase change material Applications include:

Power control unit, inverter, onboard electronics, IGBT
Servers, supercomputing, video graphic array (VGA) cards, AI, GPU/CPU/Desktop, solid state drives (SSD)
Switches, routers, base stations
Tablets, gaming, notebooks, smartphones, action cameras & lighting

What happens to Phase Change Materials after Shelf Life?

Past the shelf life, the most readily observed response is precut pads (kiss-cut) tend to stick to each other and customers may have difficulty peeling out one without damaging adjacent one. There will be some viscosity change that may or may not affect thermal performance and we will not test or recertify material. We will not be liable for product quality or performance if expired parts are used in manufacturing.

Why choose PCM over Thermal grease?

One can say that it comes down to preference, but it really doesn't. Phase change materials are hands down the best materials you can use as thermal interface IF the application parameters allow it. They are clean, efficient,can achieve the thinnest bondlines out of any other materials and are silicone free. Power cycling? Phase change can easily handle it while thermal grease can be pushed under the chip after a few hundred cycles.

Additionally they come into both paste (stencil print and dispence) and pad form (0.2~1mm thickness) and their Silicon free chemistry can achieve a bondline of 20~30μm making it the thinnest, cleanest and most reliable bondline in the market. Does this make thermal frease bad? Definitely not. Grease is great for all the other application types that PCM can't cover due to the temperature restrictions.

What are the differences between Pads and Pastes?

Phase change Pastes have the exact same chemistry as the pahse change pads, with added solvent to make them printable. Stencil print is highly sought after for applications with high throughput such as IGBT screen printing.

Solvents can be adjusted so that the drying process is faster or slower, depending on your application requirements.

Why are some properties a range?

Phase change materials come in thicknesses ranging from 0.2-1mm. Those are the initial values that are adjusted after you heat up (>45°C) and pressure the material. The installation pressure will determine the final thickness and thermal properties that those materials will keep throughout their lifetime. Thermal conductivity and bond line are directly affected by the installation pressure and no matter the stated properties, the final bondline is what is going to determine the material's thermal fate.

Phase change materials are made for post reflow operations. They activate at 45°C and are not suitable for 245 - 260°C. Those Silicone free chemistries rely on thermally conductive fillers such as ZnO, Aluminium and Alumina to achieve their thermal properties. Their pad form is clean and efficient and allows for a very thin bondline, down to 20-30μm.

Precise and reliable application requires spring pressure or initial heat to be applied to reduce the bond line thickness.Their nature doesn't work for high temperature applications but if the temperatures allow, it is a much better alternative for thermal grease since they are not prone to pump or dry out and are not "messy" at all. They definitely tick the boxes for conformable and reliable.

Compared to Silicone grease, PCM have longer molecular chains with high molecular weight and surface tension ensuring a robust polymer structure and a stable filler-polymer matrix. The H steric hindrance provides a Rigid structure that ensures low filler migration and separation that at the same time limits the material mobility and pump out.

On the other hand, the tried and proven thermal grease has good flowability and low contact resistance but its short chains and Si-O-Si structures create a less rigid structure that has potential for migration, dry out and pump out issues.

Pressure vs Thermal Impedance Chart

SP versions - Stencil Print Thickness Shrinkage

All of our PCM materials come in both Pad and Paste versions (SP). The SP versions are identical to the pads, with the main difference being the added solvent that makes them more viscous. With this form come a couple of questions, first one being, "How much does the solvent shrink and how does this affect the final bondline thickness?".

To answer this we printed in a few different target thicknesses, namely 0.2mm, 0.25mm and 0.3mm. Then we put these samples in the oven for 20 minutes at 80°C for the solvent to dry and measured the outcome. From the resulting thicknesses, we concluded that, regardless of the print thickness, the dry version is ±20% thinner than the thickness right after print. So, for example, to get a 0.25mm final (dry) bondline we need a 0.3mm initial thickness.