4 November 2016

Cambridge Nanotherm expands manufacturing capability for high-power LED designs

Cambridge Nanotherm Ltd of Haverhill, Suffolk, UK, producer of nanoceramic thermal management technology, says that it has built significant additional capability and capacity into its metal core printed-circuit board (MCPCB) manufacturing base to meet rising demand for its thermal management solutions. The firm has established partnerships with a wide network of PCB and thin-film manufacturers to offer a broad range of options in terms of circuitization, quality, volume and standards.

Cambridge Nanotherm's manufacturing capabilities span fast-turnaround prototyping, high-definition thin-film circuitization, speciality manufacturing, and high-volume mass production. Key industry and regulatory standards such as automotive standard ISO/TS 16949:2009 as well as industry-specific SGS standards can be applied.

The firm says that, from LED chip packaging to high-brightness modules, thermal management is becoming a limiting factor as customers demand ever brighter LED devices in ever smaller footprints. To meet these requirements, LED makers are being pushed into using more thermally effective substrates to ensure that LEDs stay cool enough to meet their advertised lifespan. Historically, that meant switching from cost-effective MCPCBs to expensive and difficult-to-work-with ceramics such as alumina and aluminium nitride. Cambridge Nanotherm offers an alternative.

Sitting at the heart of high-power LED applications, Nanotherm LC and Nanotherm DM technologies are enabling a new generation of products that rely on effective thermal management to operate successfully, says the firm. Its proprietary LC and DM technologies are available exclusively via this manufacturing process.

"Cambridge Nanotherm's MCPCBs offer designers a distinct thermal advantage," claims chief operating officer Andy Matthews. "Demand for our solutions has therefore been strong, and we're currently engaged with most of the top-ten LED manufacturers. As a result we've expanded our manufacturing routes to cater to a much broader variety of requirements," he adds. "We're working with some of the best PCB and thin-film circuitization companies so we can offer an exceptional range of options... We will continue to develop our manufacturing capabilities."

Nanotherm's patented ECO process involves converting the surface of the aluminium core of the MCPCB, which acts as a heat spreader, into an electrically insulating but thermally conductive Nanoceramic that offers outstanding thermal performance. Depending on the circuitization route that is chosen, composite thermal performance of the resulting MCPBC ranges from 115W/mK to 152W/mK.

Standard LC products are covered by UL recognition, speeding time to market for luminaires and modules. Nanotherm manages the entire process, from thermal design guidance and material choice to delivering the finished circuits, simplifying the manufacturing route for customers.

Tags: packaging heat-sink LEDs

Visit: www.camnano.com