Bench Talk

Join journalist Tommy Cummings for a weekly look at all things interesting, new, and noteworthy for design engineers.

Electronic devices and circuitry have the potential to overheat in the course of normal operation. However, unlike us, devices and circuits will not complain. They will continue to operate until they shut down or prematurely fail due to the stress of overheating.

As the demand for smaller, more powerful electronic products grows, design engineers must find new ways to mitigate thermal generation in electronics, especially those in small enclosures. Finding thermal management solutions is becoming more and more critical to improving product reliability and preventing premature failures due to heat.

There are numerous methods for controlling and mitigating heat in electronic devices. Designers have many solutions to consider, including using advanced materials and components and implementing known thermodynamic and heat-transfer techniques.

In this week's New Tech Tuesdays, we'll check out products that keep things cool from NMB Technologies, Laird, and Texas Instruments.

NMB Technologies' R150G IP68 PWM Brushless DC Fans offer an IP68 rating per IEC 60529 standards and an active brake to 0RPM within 3s at 5-10% PWM input. The fans have a three-phase DC brushless motor with pulse width modulation (PWM) speed control, an open collector tacho signal output for fan speed monitoring, and multiple motor protections. The fans are ideal for factory automation, food processing, inverters, telecom, and horticulture applications.

Laird's Performance Materials Tpcm^™ 5000 High-Performance Thermal Interface Material (TIM) uses a non-silicone formulation material that achieves very low thermal resistance by coupling high thermal conductivity of 5.3W/mK, minimal bond line thickness, and wetting of mating and bonding surfaces. The initial pad thickness can decrease to a bond line as thin as 25µm. Typical applications include semiconductor packaging, graphics cards, IGBTs, and automotive. The product is available in sheets and die cuts.

Texas Instruments TMP126-Q1 SPI Temperature Sensor is a 0.25°C accuracy digital temperature sensor designed for a wide range of automotive applications, including transmission control units, brake systems, onboard chargers, and more. The TMP126-Q1 includes additional advanced features for increased reliability in harsh environments, such as an optional cyclic redundancy check (CRC) checksum for data integrity, programmable alert limits, a temperature slew rate warning, and an enhanced operational temperature range. This AEC-Q100 qualified temperature sensor comes factory calibrated with NIST traceability.

Devices and circuits aren't programmed to complain. They might alert us if they're overheated and might shut down. But with proper thermal management, designers can keep them working efficiently and cool simultaneously. There are numerous product solutions that designers can use to achieve this.