Heat Transfer Characteristics in High Power LED Packaging

This study uses the T3Ster transient thermal resistance measuring device to investigate the effects to heat transfer performances from different LED crystal grains, packaging methods and heat-sink substrates through the experimental method. The experimental parameters are six different types of LED modules that are made alternatively with the crystal grain structure, the die attach method and the carrying substrate. The crystal grain structure includes the lateral type, flip chip type and vertical type. The die attach method includes silver paste and the eutectic structure. The carrying substrates are aluminum oxide (Alumina) and aluminum nitride (AIN) ceramic substrates and metal core PCB (MCPCB). The experimental results show that, under the conditions of the same crystal grain and die attach method, the thermal resistance values for the AIN substrate and the Alumina substrate are 2.1K/W and 5.1K/W, respectively and the total thermal resistance values are 7.3K/W and 10.8K/W. Compared to the Alumina substrate, the AIN substrate can effectively lower the total thermal resistance value by 32.4%. This is because the heat transfer coefficient of the AIN substrate is higher than that of the Alumina substrate, thus effectively increasing its thermal conductivity. In addition, under the conditions of the same crystal grain and the same substrate, the packaging methods are using silver paste and the eutectic structure for die attach. Their thermal resistance values are 5.7K/W and 2.7K/W, respectively, with a variance of 3K/W. Comparisons of the crystal grain structure show that the thermal resistance for the flip chip type is lower than that of the traditional lateral type by 0.9K/W. This is because the light emitting layer of the flip chip crystal grain is closer to the heat-sink substrate, shortening the heat dissipation route, and thus lowering the thermal resistance value. For the total thermal resistance, the crystal grain structure has a lesser effect to the heat dissipation performance whereas the packaging method and the choice of the substrate have a relatively higher effect to the LED heat dissipation performance. Combining the above results, we see that selecting the flip chip crystal grain with a closer light emitting layer to the substrate, the eutectic structure that has better thermal conductivity and the AIN substrate can effectively increase the heat dissipation performance of the LED module.