Traditional thermal management designs heavily favor the use of copper as the foundation for high power electronic packaging, whether as IGBT baseplates (shown left) or thermal spreaders in Flip Chip semiconductor packaging. Copper has exceptional thermal conductivity and acceptable CTE. But recently, copper prices have become volatile and CTE match is more important from reliability that thermal conductivity. Add in the desire for lightweight and corrosion resistance and you begin to wonder why copper is the first choice in the first place.
Until now, the only alternative to copper for high power thermal management was Preform Infiltrated (PI) Al-SiC. Many times more expensive that copper, PI Al-SiC has been limited to only the most specialized of applications, like traction motors for High Speed Trains. The limited product offering, slow production rate, and high cost has not been acceptable solutions for the growth areas in power electronics.
Ravelin Materials' use of Stir-Cast Al-SiC in combination with traditional aluminum forming techniques allows for the benefits of Al-SiC at costs competitive with copper. The RAV product series fills the void between copper and preform infiltrated Al-SiC, offering the widest range of tailorable CTE material on the market.
