Elaboration and Properties of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Copper Matrix Composites

Abstract

Carbon fibres reinforced copper matrix composites (Cu/C composites) offer an excellent thermal conductivity and a low coefficient of thermal expansion. Then, these composites are compromising heat dissipation materials for electronic application. The modern electronic devices consist of a variety of metallic, ceramic, plastic or composite components. The large difference of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) between ceramic substrates, such as Al2O3 and AlN, and heat dissipation materials, such as Cu and Al, and Si and GaAs semiconductors, induces thermal stresses resulting in failures at the interfaces between the different layers of the devices (fig. 1). In high power dissipation packages, thermal management is an important issue to prevent thermal damage of sensitive components on the silicon ship, especially for high density electronic packaging. Thermal management is thus one of the critical aspects in design of multichip modules to ensure reliability of electronic devices with high packing and power densities. In this context, there is an increasing demand of new heat dissipation materials having low CTE combined with high thermal conductivity, such as Cu/C composites.