Overview
eGRAF® NeoNxGen™ Thermal Management Solutions are designed to address thermal challenges that require high thermal conductivity and a thick form factor. Traditionally, synthetic graphite offers good thermal conductivity; however, this material is thickness limited. To service higher thermal power challenges, multiple synthetic graphite sheets are laminated with adhesives, adding complexity, thermal resistance, and failure modes. NeoNxGen offers similar or better thermal performance in a single reliable layer, reducing complexity.
Markets & Their Trends
NeoNxGen addresses some of the most pressing challenges in the Consumer Electronics market (Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops / Ultrabook’s, 4K and 8K TVs), the Automotive market (Auto Electronics, Battery Thermal Management, ADS and ADAS systems) and the Telecommunications market (5G will open up new venues with faster speeds and newer connected devices, bringing with it newer and more significant thermal challenges in a smaller footprint).
Consumer Electronics
The Consumer Electronics market continues to evolve in both form factors (larger and thinner devices) and in performance while moving towards more reliable and passive devices. As the devices become more feature-heavy and mainstream, reliable cost-effective solutions like NeoNxGen make them a reality.
Telecommunications
With 5G upon us, it opens an exciting array of devices that connect and transfer data at very high speeds in a small footprint. These complexities bring thermal challenges that traditional passive cooling systems struggle to meet. NeoNxGen enables simpler designs in a thickness-challenged setup with its high performance and reliability.
Automotive
The Automotive Market is undergoing a renaissance of sorts, with xEVs and electronification of vehicles. Solving thermal challenges in batteries is a critical step to achieve increased reliability, longer life, and faster charging. Heavy active thermal solutions can add unwanted complexity and reliability challenges. Modern technologies like Automated Driving Systems and Advanced Driver Assist Systems are powerful computers in a harsh environment that needs reliable and simple thermal solutions to keep them working at their designed levels.
Challenges
As performance and complexity increase, thermal management becomes more expensive and challenging. When pushing the boundaries of performance, product designers encounter several thermal challenges and must either use an active system or multi-layer synthetic graphite. If a natural graphite-based solution cannot be implemented in the thickness available, it will result in more expensive solutions. The resulting active system or multi-layer synthetic graphite solution increases the complexity and reduces reliability of their systems. NeoNxGen reduces the layers, not the thermal performance, enabling reliable, high performance devices without the complexity. Ease of handling and forming complex shapes while maintaining the flexibility of graphite provides the product designers with a new tool to address thermal challenges.
Alternative Solutions
Multi-layer synthetic graphite is a traditional choice when it comes to addressing heavy thermal challenges in thickness-constrained applications. It brings its own challenges of reliability, complexity and material loss due to yield and handling issues. NeoNxGen makes it easy to replace the multi-layer solution with a single layer of high-performance graphite.
The Market Future
The market for reliable passive cooling and shielding solutions continues to grow as the demand of electronics increases in devices. The IoT and 5G enables a dazzling array of connected devices from telecommunications to automotive to 4th industrial revolution. NeoGraf Solutions is very excited to be on the forefront of reliable thermal management solutions enabling the next generation of devices.
By Prashanth Subramanian
GrafGuard® expandable graphite flake is a non-halogenated fire retardant additive for materials that require improved fire-protection characteristics.
