American Standard Circuits Press Release - November 7, 2011

American Standard Circuits Inc. Announces Thermal Management
Materials for EMI Shielded PCBs for RF Circuits

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American Standard Circuits, Inc.
475 Industrial Drive, West Chicago, IL 60175
Contact: Anaya Vardya
Phone# 630-639-5444, Fax# 630-293-1240

Release Date = Thursday October 27, 2011

West Chicago, IL: American Standard Circuits, Inc. (ASC) has developed a new type of thermally and electrically conducting bonding material to bond the PCB ground plane with the heat sink for RF circuits and electromagnetic shielding applications. In this newly developed class of materials, there are two types of such bonding materials: Electrasil-3A, just announced and available to the market; and Electrasil-3B which will be released early next year.

ASC was an early participant in thermal management and has much expertise and investment in this area possessing several material patents, Electrasil-3A being ASCI’s most recent invention. Electrasil-3A is a silicone based elastomeric interface that is suitable for bonding surfaces that have widely dissimilar values of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). Being elastomeric in nature, Electrasil-3A can easily absorb mechanical shock or dimensional changes with changing temperature or other sudden movements. Thus, it is ideally suited for airborne PCBs, particularly in military fighter planes or missiles. Such elastomeric bonding agents are also very pliable and are therefore ideal for flexible circuitries, as silicones can be bent around without cracks or disjoints.

Electrasil-3A can be supplied as bonding sheets of any uniform thickness starting from 3 mils and higher, or as a putty material that can easily fill circuitry with complex shapes that are not necessarily planar. Therefore, the putty form is ideal to replace air in complex shaped cavities between the heat sink body and the PCB ground layer. By changing the catalyst of the curing process, the bonding characteristics of these interface materials can be customized to suit the need for both permanent bonding and temporary bonding when the components have to be assembled and disassembled multiple times, such as in rework applications.

The thermal and electrical conductivities can be varied over a wide range. The properties of Electrasil-3A are summarized in the table below. And a white paper with more detailed technical information will be published in the coming months.

Electrasil-3A (Silicone based elastomeric (flexible) thermally and electrically conducting bonding film)

Electrasil-3A (Silicone based elastomeric (flexible) thermally and electrically conducting bonding film)

For more information on Electsil 3A, please contact technology@asc-i.com.

About American Standard Circuits
American Standard Circuits (ASC) prides itself in being a Total Solutions Provider and manufactures quality rigid, metal-backed and flex printed circuit boards on various types of substrates for a variety of applications. These thermal management products can go into high speed computing, high power devices, high frequency telecommunication ranging from aerospace to deep space, defense, LEDs and other devices using light or heavy metal heat sinks, automotive electronics, and navigation devices - right from small test and prototype quantities to large volume production. We provide all of our technologies in a time critical environment. Our staff is made up of world class, highly experienced Ph.D. materials scientists, engineers and Six Sigma black belts. Company certifications include ISO 9001:2008, MIL-PRF-31032 and ITAR registration. To learn more, please visit www.asc-i.com.




Posted  11/8/2011