Thermattach T411 & T412, thermal pads

Thermattach® is a range of thermally conductive tapes studied specifically for adhesion in aluminum or cooper coolers on chips integrated into the motherboard or electrical boards in general. The Chomerics Thermattach® tapes are extremely simply to apply as the tape is placed on both sides, guaranteeing a perfect thermal interface between the electronic component and the cooler. The tapes offer high heat conductivity and excellent bonding properties, thanks to which you no longer need to use heat conducting adhesive pastes or mechanical hooks to install the coolers. Microcool has two different types of Thermattach® tapes, with one complementing the other and capable of meeting the needs of all cooler installers: T411 and T412.

THERMATTACH® T411 - tape consists of a high bond strength pressure-sensitive adhesive with an expanded aluminum mesh carrier layer. The mesh carrier allows the tape to conform to curved surfaces of plastic molded IC packages, providing a high adhesive strength attachment for heat sinks. The high performance silicone PSA allows adhesion to silicone-contaminated plastics and other low energy surfaces. T411 is ideal for fixing large coolers where bonding strength is fundamental. It is particularly indicated to install heavy copper coolers on the BGA memories of the video cards or in general for the perfect adhesion of aluminum or copper coolers on chips encapsulated in plastic packaging, such as chipsets or processors, which due to their slightly concave surfaces and the presence of silicone products on the surface, make other tapes ineffective.

THERMATTACH® T412 thermal tape consists of a high bond strength, pressure-sensitive acrylic adhesive, loaded with titanium diboride and applied to an expanded aluminum carrier. The combination of filler, expanded metal and embossed surface enhances both tape conformability and thermal performance. T412 is ideal for use where you want to obtain excellent heat sinking by fixing the small to medium size coolers in aluminum or copper to components such as: MOSFET, PLL or BGA chips.

Specifications

	T411	T412
Sheets measures	180(L)x130(W) mm	180(L)x130(W) mm
Carrier	Aluminium mesh	Expanded aluminium
Color	Silver	Grey
Thickness	0,28 mm	0,23 mm
Thermal impedance	6,5 °C-cm2/W	1,7 °C-cm2/W

Product test

Recently I had the opportunity to test a Swiftech MC8800 SMC cooling kit. This kit exists out of a bunch of small copper heatsinks which stick onto your video card with a pre-applied double sided thermal tape. Though, the quality of that sticky tape degraded fast after a few reinstalls and at this moment the heatsinks have even become useless because the thermal tape lost all of its bounding properties. I can not just throw them away and get another cooling kit...

Lucky me, Microcool came to the rescue. Removal of the standard sticky tape on those heatsink cost me quite some time, but eventually I succeeded and only moments later the heatsinks were attached to my VGA card yet again:



I installed the heatsinks on an ATI HD2400XT, the DDR2 video memory has been voltmodded to 2,2V to increase the thermal dissipation of those chips. To measure a difference temperature wise I ran 3D Mark 2005 in loop for 1/2 hour and then took my Velleman DVM8810 infrared temp sensor to read out the correct heatsink temperature.



Here are the results:



Thermattach T411 and T412 offer on par performance with the double sided tape that is standard installed on the MC8800 SMC cooling kit. Although we do not have a uniform way to test the bounding capabilities of those thermal pads, we did some improvised testing; here is a sample shot of one of those:



Thermattach T411 & T412 brought a noticeable better bound between the VGA memory chips and the copper heatsinks. We had no problem lifting the VGA card via the heatsink, with the stock double sided tape we had to be really careful otherwise the card would just drop off. It becomes even better, look how we could lift our 500gr heavy Zalman 9500LED CPU Cooler off the ground, my arm even got tired before the heatsink wanted to release again!



Conclusive Thoughts on Thermattach T411 & T412

+ Excellent bounding capability
+ Decent cooling capability
+ Easy install/uninstall

- One/two times able to apply
- Low availability