Micro-Thermal Interface Material Coatings from Henkel Land Award Win, Portfolio Expansion Underway

Henkel Corporation (Henkel), a leader in material solutions for telecom and datacom systems, today announced that its BERGQUIST^® microTIM mTIM 1000 series micro-thermal interface coatings are the recipient of a Circuits Assembly magazine 2021 NPI Award. A judging panel of practicing engineers evaluated all entrants across various criteria including cost-effectiveness, design, performance, innovation and compatibility with existing technology; Henkel’s microTIM product was named the winner in the thermal interface materials category.

As data centers embrace the 400 GbE standard – and soon move to 600 GbE or even 800 GbE – to manage greater data bandwidth demands, the heat generated by higher-capacity pluggable optical modules ‏(POMs) has to be efficiently dissipated to ensure optimal performance. Traditional thermal interface materials such as thermal pads or tapes are not practical, as they are easily scraped off or damaged with module insertion and removal. And, using no heat dissipating interface at all – just metal-to-metal contact between the module and riding heat sink – is not a satisfactory solution for higher-power ‏(>15 W) modules.

Henkel’s BERGQUIST^® microTIM mTIM 1000 series micro-thermal interface coatings provide a robust thermal management solution for next-generation POMs in cloud and hyperscale data centers and data center interconnect applications. Applied on the riding heatsink, the durable microTIM coatings can withstand numerous module insertions and pulls with no degradation in performance. In testing, Henkel’s microTIM innovation had a significant impact on heat reduction: Evaluation demonstrated that a high-power density POM that requires 15 W power dissipation will operate approximately 5.0°C cooler with the microTIM coating versus no coating and a metal-to-metal interface. With as many as 32 POMs per networking line card, this is significant heat reduction for improved operational performance.

Henkel’s microTIM coatings are the first such market innovation to address this challenge and the initial success has fostered further development with a second-generation material set to launch mid-2021. Offering the same heat-dissipating benefits as the original formulation, the new material can be applied either on the heat sink or directly on the module. 

Henkel, winner of multiple industry awards for its thermal portfolio, is a global leader in thermal management solutions and is grateful to Circuits Assembly for offering the NPI Award platform to recognize true industry innovation. For more information about BERGQUIST^® microTIM mTIM 1000 series POM solutions or any of Henkel’s award-winning thermal materials, visit the company’s thermal management materials resource.