What is a Carbon Fiber Thermal Pad
Carbon fiber thermal pads are thermal management components primarily composed of carbon fiber, representing a new type of thermal interface material.
Their most notable feature is an exceptionally high thermal conductivity, fully leveraging carbon fiber’s inherent properties of lightweight construction and high strength. They exhibit strong temperature tolerance and exceptional durability.
Furthermore, they eliminate the risk of silicone oil leakage, ensuring safety and reliability throughout their service life.
What are the Properties of the Carbon Fiber Thermal Pad?
Temperature Tolerance
Carbon fiber maintains stable physical and chemical properties under both extremely high and low temperatures without decomposition or aging, making it adaptable to diverse environments. Additionally, carbon fiber thermal pads exhibit a low thermal expansion coefficient, resulting in minimal dimensional changes during temperature fluctuations.
Excellent in Thermal Conductivity
Carbon fiber itself has superior thermal conductivity. When combined with other high-thermal-conductivity fillers, carbon thermal pads efficiently and quickly dissipate heat, maintaining the optimal operational temperatures of electric components.
Lightweight yet High Strength
Carbon fiber is a lightweight material that possesses excellent mechanical properties. Consequently, carbon fiber thermal pads combine light weight with robust mechanical strength and durability, making them suitable for diverse and complex environments.
Good Flexibility
Carbon fiber thermal pads exhibit flexibility, enabling them to conform well to various surfaces. This will ensure that the contact area is enhanced and facilitates heat dissipation.
- Superior thermal conductivity: 16W/m.K
- Good EMI suppression and thermal conduction
- Low outgassing, durable aging performance
- Low stress required for assembly
- Good workability and ultra-thin offering
- Wide range of thickness options
- Cost-saving solutions
- Superior thermal conductivity: 20W/m.K
- Good EMI suppression and thermal conduction
- Low outgassing, durable aging performance
- Low stress required for assembly
- Good workability and ultra-thin offering
- Wide range of thickness options
- Cost-saving solutions
- Superior thermal conductivity: 25W/m.K
- Good EMI suppression and thermal conduction
- Low outgassing, durable aging performance
- Low stress required for assembly
- Good workability and ultra-thin offering
- Wide range of thickness options
- Cost-saving solutions
- Superior thermal conductivity: 35W/m.K
- Good EMI suppression and thermal conduction
- Low outgassing, durable aging performance
- Low stress required for assembly
- Good workability and ultra-thin offering
- Wide range of thickness options
- Cost-saving solutions
- Superior thermal conductivity: 50W/m.K
- Good EMI suppression and thermal conduction
- Low outgassing, durable aging performance
- Low stress required for assembly
- Good work ability and ultra-thin offering
- Wide range of thickness options
- Good thermal stability
How is a Carbon Fiber Thermal Pad Made?
The first step in manufacturing carbon fiber thermal pads involves preparing suitable materials, it is for sure that GALLOP INNOTEK will select high-purity carbon fiber and thermal conductive materials for the products you purchase. These conductive materials are then uniformly incorporated into the carbon fiber fabric through an appropriate mixing process to achieve enhanced thermal conductivity.
During the forming process, molds are utilized to assist in shaping the material. By applying the appropriate temperature and pressure, the material is formed into the desired shape. Subsequent secondary processing steps may include cutting, surface treatment, grinding, and other operations to ensure the final product meets quality standards.
GALLOP INNOTEK operates a specialized factory dedicated to manufacturing carbon fiber thermal pads, ensuring results that meet your expectations.
The Common Application of a Carbon Fiber Thermal Pad
LED Lighting
In LED lighting, carbon fiber thermal pads can be used to improve thermal efficiency, slow down light decay, and prolong the service life and stability of the light source.
Thermal Conductive Material of an Electronic Device
Carbon fiber thermal pads are used for the thermal management of electronic devices, such as computers, smartphones, or tablets, significantly reducing their internal temperature and prolonging their service life.
Electric Vehicle
Carbon fiber thermal pads are also used in electric vehicle batteries and electronic control systems to enhance system reliability and safety.
Communication Equipment
In high-power-density communication base stations and servers, carbon fiber thermal pads can effectively help cool down the temperature, thereby maintaining good long-term and stable operation of communication equipment.
Traditional silicone thermal pads primarily use silicone oil as their base material, with ceramic powders and metal powders sometimes added during manufacturing to enhance thermal conductivity and performance. Compared to these conventional silicone pads, the incorporation of carbon fiber significantly boosts the thermal conductivity of carbon fiber thermal pads. Moreover, these pads offer superior mechanical strength, flexibility, and durability.
They also eliminate the risk of silicone oil leakage, ensuring safer usage. Thus, when environmental protection is taken into consideration, GALLOP INNOTEK carbon fiber thermal pads appear to be a better choice.
Additionally, carbon fiber has some shortcomings that may be factors to consider during the selection and use process.
You’ve probably found that carbon fiber thermal pads are typically more expensive than silicone pads, and for good reason. This is due to the high cost of the material and the complicated manufacturing processes. The cost of carbon fiber per se has rendered very expensive the manufacturing of heat dissipating components from this material.
It is also challenging and expensive to produce due to the inherent strength and stiffness of carbon fiber. For example, when used in automobile production, it must undergo precision machining and forming processes to achieve the desired thermal properties.
So if you are struggling with expenses, Carbon fiber thermal pads might be the least option to consider.
Not exactly. Carbon-fiber silicone pads offer a certain level of insulation, but their insulating performance is not as strong as that of dedicated insulation sheets.
Their core function is their high thermal conductivity, along with excellent reliability and a long service life.
soft and thin
They are very soft and exhibit excellent compressibility, which allows them to fill product gaps well and provides excellent thermal conductivity.
Superior thermal conductivity
They have super high thermal conductivity (16 to 50 W/m·K) and low thermal resistance. They can even fully replace thermal paste.
high reliability
They can conduct heat efficiently even in extreme temperatures ranging from -60°C to 200°C, and without issues such as silicone oil precipitation or aging.
Reusable and Long life
Carbon fiber thermal pad does not dry out and can be installed and removed many times without any loss of function. They can be used for almost 5 years or longer.
Carbon fiber thermal pads typically have a lifespan of 5-8 years.
Though operating conditions and usage frequency can affect longevity, we usually recommend that you replace them in the 5th year.
Carbon fiber thermal pads are mainly made of silicone and carbon fiber.
Both silicone and carbon fiber have high heat resistance, allowing the pad to withstand long-term temperatures from -60°C to 200°C without hardening, cracking, or noticeable shrinkage.
Carbon fiber thermal pad and silicon thermal pad are both commonly used thermal interface materials. Both of them are soft, but the carbon fiber thermal pad is much thinner and lighter, and exhibits higher thermal conductivity than the silicone thermal pad.
Both of them can work efficiently in weather ranging from -60℃ to 200℃. But the carbon fiber thermal pad provides more stable reliability, it can be installed and removed many times without any aging, while the silicone thermal pad tends to dry out and crack.Because the carbon fiber thermal pad is made of carbon fiber and silicone, the silicone thermal pad performs better in terms of insulation.
Carbon fiber thermal pads is used to be more expensive due to their complex manufacturing process.
If you’re looking for a product with good thermal conductivity and high stability, and you have a good budget, then you can choose a carbon fiber thermal pad.
If you’re looking for a product that requires both good thermal conductivity and insulation, and your budget isn’t great, then you can choose a silicone thermal pad.
1.Thermal Grizzly（Carbonaut 系列）
Thermal Grizzly is a German thermal interface material manufacturer, and it is world-famous for its thermal paste、thermal pad, and liquid metal. They provide products with extremely high heat dissipation performance and are widely known by PC enthusiasts.
2.LeaderTech（TCF 系列）
Leader Tech is a famous American manufacturer of EMI shielding products. It was founded in 1984. They provide products like ferrite cable shieldings、conductive elastomers、microwave absorbers, and also include thermal interface materials like thermal pads.
Panasonic Industry is a Japanese company that provides thermal management materials, such as Pyrolytic Graphite Sheets, cooling fan and so on.
Dexerials is a Japanese company that was founded in 2012. Its parent company is Sony Chemicals Corporation. It is dedicated to researching and producing electronic materials and optical materials.
Gallop Innotek is a Chinese one-stop manufacturer of TIM and EMI Shielding materials. They provide not only materials, but also thermal solutions. They offer a wide variety of materials and can quickly customize samples to meet your specific needs.
The typical operating temperature is -60℃ to 200℃.
The carbon fiber thermal pad is made of carbon fiber and thermal pad.
Carbon fiber itself can withstand temperatures up to around 500°C, but for a composite material like a carbon fiber thermal pad, the operating temperature is limited by its base material.
We recommend keeping the pads at the temperature limit（-60℃〜200℃）to extend their lifespan.
If the chip power is very high and it generates a lot of heat when powering up, please consider increasing the size of the cooling heatsink in the structure design to better control the temperature and extend the lifespan as expected.
Its typical applications includes
- Displays, cellphone, laptops, note-pads
- Consumer and industrial electronics
- Automotive electronics
- High-power LED lightings, SFP modules
- Telecommunications, power conversion
The most outstanding features of carbon-fiber thermal pad are its ultra-low thermal resistance & good resilience under compression.
If the application requires high thermal conductivity and doesn’t require electrical insulation, and you have already designed insulation coatings for the PCB, you can use this pad without any concerns.
Physically, carbon thermal pad is a solid gap pad while thermal paste is in liquid state which will be used by printing or dispensing.
To fill the gaps, a carbon-fiber thermal pad can typically fill gaps up to 3mm. Thermal paste or grease should be applied with a thickness of up to 0.2mm to prevent a mess of materials due to its fluidity during application.
Typical thickness of carbon fiber thermal pads:
Ultra-thin carbon fiber thermal pad：0.10 mm、0.15 mm、0.20 mm、0.25 mm
Thin carbon fiber thermal pad：0.30 mm、0.40 mm、0.50 mm
Gallop Innotek can provide carbon fiber thermal pads with a thickness ranging from 0.2mm to 3.0mm.
Yes, of course. If you can share your 3D drawings, working conditions, and so on, we will provide the simulation analysis report with appropriate design improvement solutions
1、Cleaning
Clean the surface of the heat sink and product.
2、Measuring
Measure the dimensions and the thickness of the area where the thermal pad needs to be applied. Then cut the Carbon fiber thermal pad to the appropriate size.
3、Peeling off
Peeling off the protective film from the carbon fiber thermal pad.
4、Setting on
Set the carbon fiber thermal pad on your product or heat sink.
5、Test
If the operating temperature is not as high as before after the device is reassembled and powered on, then the thermal pad is installed correctly.
