Can anyone tell me the difference between them? and how they are useful in electronics ?
Dear Aravind Rudrarapu ,
increasing packaging and increasing power consumption in microelectronics require more and more a cooling of microprocessors. Both, thermal interface and heat dissipation materials shall increase heat dissipation. While thermal interface materials shall mainly decrease thermal resistance between microprocessor - or more general the hot part – and the heat sink, heat dissipation materials shall also spread the heat over a wider area to increase the area for cooling. So, thermal interface materials shall at least have a high thermal conductivity in direction of the heat flow, while heat dissipation materials shall also have a high thermal conductivity in the perpendicular direction. E.g. polycrystalline diamond, which have been historically seen to be a promising material for thermal interface materials, have a very high vertical thermal conductivity, but due to the columnar structure, a much lower in-layer thermal conductivity.
A good review for thermal management in electronics – including thermal interface and heat dissipation materials - might be this publication:
Arden L. Moore, Li Shi; Emerging challenges and materials for thermal management of electronics;
Link on researchgate
Article Emerging challenges and materials for thermal management of ...
If you are more interessted in thermal interface materials or heat dissipation for other applications you might find the following review more interesting
Ravi Prasher: Thermal Interface Materials:Historical Perspective, Status,and Future Directions , Proceedings of the IEEE Volume: 94 , Issue: 8, 1571-1586 (2006)
DOI: 10.1109/JPROC.2006.879796
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1705143
Hoping this information is helpfull for you.
Best regards
Jürgen Hartmann
Hi Arravind,
Thermal interface materials (TIM) is the material that is used to reduce the thermal resistance on the interface between two surfaces. Usually, it is used in electronics cooling. For example, when we attach heat sink on the processor, there will be interface between processor and heat sink. Although it is seen smoothly attached one another, but microscopically only small portion of surface is really contacted because basically the surfaces are not that smooth. This will create air void at the interface and causes high thermal resistance. To reduce thermal resistance, the air voids should be filled with material that has high thermal conductivity. There are several types of TIM such as pad or grease.
Heat dissipation is the amount of heat flow that is emitted by heat sources. The term "heat dissipation" is usually used in the thermal management on electronics. For example: the processor consumes 100 W of electricity. However, most of the this electrical energy is converted to heat. Let's assume 95% of electrical energy is converted to heat, it means the heat dissipation of this processor is 95 W which must be managed by electronics cooling device. Otherwise, the temperature of processor can be higher than allowable temperature thus causes over heat and failure.
Hopefully it helps
Tri Ayodha
Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) are a category of products used to aid thermal conduction between mechanically mated surfaces, such as a semiconductor device and a heat sink.
Dear Aravind Rudrarapu,
A thermal interface material (shortened to TIM) is any material that is inserted between two components in order to enhance the thermal coupling between them. Thermal Interface Materials doesn't take long for an electronics assembler to realize that a thermal interface material (TIM) is essential when two or more solid surfaces are in the heat path. Standard machined surfaces are rough and wavy, leading to relatively few actual contact points between surfaces. Several type of TIM include thermal paste, thermal gap filler, thermal tape, thermally conductive pad, Phase-change materials (PCM) and Metal thermal interface materials (metal TIMs). TIM material can be specially used for electronics cooling.
Heat dissipation is a type of heat transfer. Heat dissipation occurs when an object that is hotter than other objects is placed in an environment where the heat of the hotter object is transferred to the colder objects and the surrounding environment. Heat dissipation materials are most common heat sink materials are aluminium alloys. Metallic materials are widely used as heat dissipation materials, but there have been many attempts to replace the metallic materials with highly thermally conductive polymers. I need reasons and ways to use them.Copper has excellent heat sink properties in terms of its thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, biofouling resistance, and antimicrobial resistance. Copper, aluminum and brass are first second and third rank heat dissipates materials.
Ashish
A thermal interface material is any material that is inserted between two components in order to enhance the thermal coupling between them. A common use is heat dissipation, in which the TIM is inserted between a heat-producing device and a heat-dissipating device.
Dear Jürgen Hartmann, many thanks for your valuable detailed explanation.
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