Background

Advancements in the electronics industry have led to an increased need for new thermal management solutions. Products are smaller and more powerful than ever before, but with this trend towards miniaturization comes increased challenges in preventing the high heat generation from impacting reliability and performance. While existing thermal management solutions address some of these challenges, there are still drawbacks related to cost, size, methods of manufacturing and limitations on materials that can be used.

Technology Overview

Northeastern researchers have developed a boron-based ceramic material and material manufacturing process to provide thermal management solutions for high-density electronics. Thanks to the textured microstructure, the ceramic material can be formed into complex geometries from an original sheet of fully sintered ceramic through a heating and molding process traditionally used in thermoplastic polymer manufacturing. This has never before been demonstrated in a pure ceramic sheet. This technology enables the achievement of thermoformable ceramic material at low molding temperatures (~500C) that can be heated and formed within 15 minutes. Currently, the best cooling technologies are bulky and take up significant space, where many applications require low-profile designs. Northeastern researchers are providing low-profile, highly efficient cooling solutions.

Dielectric ceramic sheets that can be form-fitting to complex surfaces, withstand significant stress without failure and have the ability to be highly thermally conductive while electrically insulating, open a new market of ceramic-based thermal management applications. Compared to deep drawing green body ceramics, this process does not suffer from relaxation and shrinkage as the sintering process has already been completed.

Benefits

First of its kind low temperature thermoformable all-ceramic sheet
Achieves complex geometries without significant post processing or machining techniques
Rapid production within 15 minutes
Cheaper and more scalable sintering approach

Applications

High density electronics
RF devices
Power inverters
Complex surface geometry laminates
High temperature heat shielding
Neutron shielding

Opportunity

Idea validation through customer discovery, Testing and validating MVP with pilot partner(s)

Thermoformable Boron-Based All-Ceramic Matrix Composites for Thermal Management

IP Status

Seeking