Thermal Management Devices
Therma-Bridge™ & Therma-Plane™
The concept behind the Therma-Bridge™ and Therma-Plane™ is simple yet revolutionary. Rather than address thermal issues using fans with complex circuitry, use an electrically isolated, thermally conductive ceramic chip to move heat efficiently from a problem on a board to an area that can safely dissipate heat.
The Therma-Bridge™ is currently being used in numerous applications where a fan or other thermal management techniques are either space prohibitive or active cooling causes a threat to device reliability (in the case of fan failure).
Heat generating component using only radiation cooling
Heat generating component using Therma-Bridge conduction
Applications Using Therma-Bridge™
- RF Amplifiers
- Conduction Cooled Computers
- Power Supplies & Converters
- JTRS, MIDS-J, GMR, AMF
- Temperature Controlled Oscillators
- Lighting Ballasts
- Protecting Neighboring Components
- Conduction Cooled Handhelds
- P25 Radios & Basestations
- Electrically Isolated Thermal Coupling
Therma-Bridge™ Example Test
Below is an actual test of the Therma-Bridge™ showing a heat generating component mounted to an FR4 board. The charts on the right show the temperature of the component being thermally aided by a Therma-Bridge™ connected to a heat sink.
Tasks
Thermal Conductivity & Electrical Capacitance
The table below lists the thermal resistance (in black) given in degrees C per watt (°C/W), the equivalent thermal conductivity, normalized to chip size, (in red) given in milliwatts per degree C (mW/°C) and the electrical capacitance, (in blue) given in picofarads (pF) for each Therma-Bridge™ size and thickness combination. These values are based on the nominal thermal resistance of Aluminum Nitride. Values are approximate.
Also see our Therma-Plane Thermal Management Device which uses the same concept as the Therma-Bridge™. The Therma-Plane is a ceramic chip with metalization on the top, bottom or both sides.
