Study on Thermal Contact Resistance for Heat Transfer of High Power LED Packaging

Thermal contact resistance is one of key technologies for heat transfer of high power light emitting diodes (LED) packaging. In this paper, based on the resistance network model of LED packaging, a 3-D finite element simulation model (FEM) is established and thermal transient testing experiments are also performed by Thermal Transient tester (T3Ster). Experiment date indicates thermal contact resistance for 48% of the total thermal resistance. The thermal interface material (TIM) layer of high power LED packaging is studied to analysis thermal contact resistance which impacts on thermal performance of LED packaging. The total thermal resistance and the thermal resistance of TIM layer are separately calculated from simulation and experiment. To the resistance of TIM layer, the result of experiment is only a 1% error compared to the result of FEM simulation. Therefore, The FEM simulation and experiment are mutually validated. In order to thoroughly study on thermal contact resistance, based on the principle of structure function, thermal resistance of three different types of TIM layer between metal core printed circuit board (MCPCB) and aluminum heat sink are measured and compared. Experiment results indicate that the quality of interface affects the thermal contact resistance to a great extent.