Viasystems awarded patent for thermal management technology in PCBs

ST. LOUIS, USA: Viasystems Corp. a subsidiary of Viasystems Group Inc., has been awarded a patent for an innovative thermal management solution for printed circuit boards (PCBs).

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Viasystems Patent #7,741,566 B2 for “Microelectronic Substrates with Thermally Conductive Pathways and Methods of Making Same.” In the patented process, Viasystems incorporates a copper heatsink as an integral part of the board rather than as an attachment.

“As electronic products become smaller and denser, and as higher speed devices populate our printed circuit boards, our customers’ heat dissipation requirements become increasingly challenging. Viasystems has invested in thermal management technology over a period of several years and now offers a spectrum of thermal management solutions (TMS) that range from basic to leading edge,” said Craig Davidson, Ph.D., Viasystems’ VP of Engineering and Technology.

Earlier methods for dissipating heat through a PCB involved “via farms,” or arrays of vias (copper-lined holes), that allowed heat to pass out of the boards. As electronic miniaturization increased and PCBs became more densely populated, via farms were no longer effective. Coin-attached heatsinks made of copper have been an important technical solution which Viasystems supplies at high-volume from its low-cost plants in China for several end-use markets.

“With this new generation of embedded heatsinks, we believe Viasystems has the industry’s most comprehensive set of PCB thermal management solutions,” Davidson continued. “Viasystems has successfully deployed embedded heatsink technology at production volumes for customers in the telecommunications industry, and we continue to work on innovative TMS in high-volume with the intent to scale up in our low-cost manufacturing facilities,” he concluded.