AluminumĪluminum is a common choice for heat sinks because of its relatively high thermal conductivity and ease of manufacturing. This article reviews the specific materials used for thermal management and the unique advantages that metal injection molding provides in fabricating heat sinks from them.
Producing net shapes allows considerable savings since no material is wasted. Metal injection molding can meet the tolerance requirements for heat sinks without the need for secondary operations, such as machining. Injection molding enables complex parts to be formed as easily as simple geometries, thereby allowing increased design freedom. A relatively new process to reduce the costs of fabricating large quantities of complex components, such as heat sinks, is metal injection molding (MIM), a net-shaping process in which metal powder is mixed with a thermoplastic binder, molded into a cavity, and thermally processed to remove the binder and produce a high density metallic component. New thermal management solutions are needed to provide cost-effective means of dissipating heat from future generation microelectronic devices.
