CPS Technologies, a designer and producer of metal matrix composites, has announced a strategic partnership with sp3 Diamond Technologies Inc. (sp3), a supplier of DiaTherm™ diamond heat spreaders and diamond products for solving thermal management challenges in high performance applications. Geared towards meeting the growing market need for electronics packages with enhanced thermal dissipation requirements, the two companies are partnering to provide AlSiC packages with diamond pins.

Supplying superior thermal dissipation, the new packages provide manufacturers of electronic devices, such as graphics processors, transportation power modules and military communication components, with dramatic device power and reliability improvements. This is due to extremely high thermal conductivity paths (1,200 W/m-K) and a tailored, low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE).

“We are excited to enter into this partnership with CPS, as our unique thermal management technologies are a perfect complement to each other,” said Dwain Aidala, president of sp3 Diamond Technologies. “We have immediately added the industry-proven, CPS AlSiC packages with diamond pins to our product portfolio, and look forward to the increased market penetration that this partnership will provide.”

Encapsulating a diamond pin with a thin layer of AlSiC, a metal-matrix composite, and strategically placing the diamond pins near hot spots provides an extremely high thermal path through the package. This path acts as a vertical solid state heat pipe to conduct heat away from hot spots and out of the package. The addition of thermal pyrolytic graphite at the top of the package dissipates the heat across a broad area at the surface of the package.

“The partnership reflects the increasing use of cost-effective diamond heat spreaders in multiple applications to improve hot spot heat transfer capability in packages,” said Grant Bennett, president of CPS. “Through this partnership, we are able to deliver a package that offers all the benefits of diamond heat spreaders in a cost-effective manner.”