Thermal Management, CTE control, and mechanical stability are critical for lightweight aerospace/defense printed circuit board (PCB) applications. Current materials for PCBs do not adequately address thermal, reliability, and weight reduction in a single material solution. Historically, the solutions used today have been the same solutions used over the last few decades. The introduction of copper or aluminum into the circuit card, or more exotic materials like copper invar copper, or graphite epoxy laminates with copper foil cladding when thermal & CTE control is required have been the most popular. However, with the new generation of electronics comes the need to develop the next generation of thermal conductive materials. The new materials developed must offer higher thermal conductivity in addition to being thinner, lighter, and fit within existing printed circuit manufacturing processes. MMCC proposes to develop and demonstrate thin copper graphite composite sheets made by pressure infiltration casting will significantly advance current state of the art PCB thermal management.
Benefit: MMCCs proposed copper graphite materials are expected to offer the following advantages to PCB thermal management; Low in-plane expansion adjustable from 3-9 ppm/C allows attachment of SMT devices with minimal risk of solder joint failure due to CTE mismatch. Improved thermal conductivity (potentially exceeding 800 W/mk using GuGrp-7) for increased thermal durability, higher circuit and power density PCB design. Drop-in 0x9D processing by the PCB fabricator treated as if were a sheet of C1100 copper. Weight savings compared to copper by ~50% if using CuGr-7, ~30% if using Cu MetGraf 7-300 or Cu/Graphite fabric.
Keywords: Printed Circuit Board PCBs Copper Graphite Composites High Thermal Conductivity CTE Matching High Modulus Lightweight, Printed Circuit Board PCBs Copper Graphite Composites High Thermal Conductivity CTE Matching High Modulus Lightweight
