Case Study: Appli-Thane 7300 Solves Circuit Board Heat Challenge

Situation

A company needed to redesign a circuit board in order to reduce the size and weight of the electronic components. The redesign, however, would result in higher heat generation. The old design incorporated a heat sink but with the smaller footprint and lower overall weight of the new board, a second heat sink wasn’t an option.

Solution

Most thermally conductive adhesives have a thermal conductivity of 1.25 W/mK, which was too low for the redesigned board and the high heat it would generate. The project engineer began sourcing a new adhesive and turned to Appli-Tec’s Appli-Thane® 7300.

A urethane-based, low outgassing (ASTM E595) adhesive, Appli-Thane 7300 met the engineer’s requirement for a 2.5 W/mK thermally conductive urethane. The adhesive met other requirements as well, including a >4 hour pot life due to being dispensed robotically.

Other required properties that Appli-Thane 7300 met included:

• Self-leveling consistency
• Hydrolytic stability
• Superior thermal cycling
• Low tensile modulus
• Electrically insulative

Results

Testing proved the adhesive solved the engineer’s application challenges. By incorporating Appli-Thane 7300, the engineer was able to meet the new design criteria for the board as well as ensure the new adhesive was suitable for automatic dispensing.

The CEO of Appli-Tec, Tim has over 30 years of experience in the pre-mixed and frozen (PMF) adhesives industry.

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