High Thermal Conductivity, Multi-Layer, AlN-Based PCB Enabling Component Embedding and Rapid Prototyping

Current printed circuit boards (PCB) manufacturing technology forms the backbone of all modern electronics. However, today’s PCBs have two major limitations. First, they are made by a long and complicated subtractive manufacturing process using toxic chemicals and producing much waste, which inhibits rapid prototyping. Second, they are by nature thermal insulators with 0.25 W/m*K thermal conductivity preventing the use of embedded component designs. This makes heat dissipation very difficult, especially when faced with the demands of today’s high-power electronics designs. Therefore, thermal management has become the key limitation to further improve performance of electronic systems, making the current PCB technology totally inadequate. Kuprion’s patented solution allows rapid prototyping of high thermal conductivity (up to 200 W/m*K) multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs) based on AlN ceramic technology. It provides up to 1000x improvement over FR4 technology (glass-fiber reinforced epoxy laminate). Circuit designs and vias can be directly printed with our patented nanocopper material. Extensive use of embedded components can be realized for improved functionality and increased compactness. Multiple layers can then be bonded together in one step using moderate processing conditions for rapid prototyping of multi-layer Ceramic Circuit Boards (CCBs) in just a few hours. Phase I efforts will demonstrate rapid prototyping of multi-layer CCBs via additive manufacturing and AlN ceramics. The CCBs will contain both conductive vias and buried components. CCBs will be evaluated to demonstrate their outstanding electrical & thermal performance, mechanical robustness and reliability under thermal cycling, shock and launch vibration conditions. Key metrics include electrical conductivity of the printed traces and vias of at least 30% IACS Cu or better, thermal conductivity of at least 80 W/m*K through the thickness and 150 W/m*K in-plane and withstanding 500 thermal cycles and 1000 thermal shocks as per industry standards. This technology enables more efficient heat dissipation in all electronic systems, allowing electronics to run cooler and consequently lowering energy consumption while enabling higher power operation in more dense packaging. This will have direct impact on the following sectors: industrial electronics, automotive electronics, aerospace, health monitoring in harsh environments, electric cars, long lasting batteries, oil and gas exploration, telecommunication equipment (especially 5G networks and server farms), LED lighting, microelectronics packaging (IC stacking and ultrahigh density I/O copper pillar technology), space exploration on Venus, Mercury and atmospheric re-entry.