Metal Core PCB (MCPCB) is a technology that has gained much popularity in recent years in the electronics industry. It is a type of printed circuit board that incorporates a base metal material, usually aluminum or copper. It is an ideal solution for applications where the printed circuit board itself may become too hot for the components and must be cooled. The heat is drawn away from the components and into the base material, which acts as a heat sink.
➜ Learn here Benefits of Metal Core PCB Fabrication
MCPCBs were first developed in the 1960s for use in military and aerospace applications where size, weight and reliability were critical factors. Due to their advantages over other materials, they are now also widely used in commercial products like automotive electronics, telecommunications and medical devices.
Today, it is widely used in various industries and has many advantages. The metal-based CCLs are widely used in the fields of LED lighting, power supply, semiconductor cooling and automotive electronics due to their special features.
They are made up of a dielectric layer, a
base metal, and a copper layer. Metal core PCBs can be single-sided,
double-sided, or multi-layer. The typical thickness of the metal substrate
ranges from 0.5mm to 2mm, with the normal value being 1.0mm. The metal core
provides a thermal path between the components and a heat sink that is used to
dissipate the heat generated by power semiconductor devices such as LEDs, IGBTs
and MOSFETs.
It is widely used in the LED lighting
industry with the benefits of reduced weight, high power dissipation and
improved thermal management.
The base metallic material in them can
come in various alloy material types, such as:
Aluminum: This is the most commonly used
metal core in MCPCBs. It works well with high-powered LEDs and is lightweight,
durable and thermally conductive. Aluminum has a thermal conductivity rating of
170 W/mK.
Copper: Copper is also commonly used in
them due to its durable nature and its high thermal conductivity rating of 401
W/mK. Copper also has higher stiffness than aluminum.
Why Use a Metal Core PCB?
Metal core circuit boards are used in
applications with high power requirements and/or where significant heat is
present. In these applications, the heat sink would be attached directly to the
metal core of the PCB. These applications include power supplies, ballasts,
inverters and other electronics that generate high levels of heat.
Advantages of Metal Core PCB
The main application advantage of metal
core printed circuit boards is to improve heat dissipation for high power
components. For example, LED lights often use aluminum as the base material to
dissipate heat well.
Compared with normal FR4 (FR4 stands for
fire retardant material number 4), MCPCB can conduct heat more efficiently and
dissipate heat faster. The standard FR4 glass epoxy substrates have low thermal
conductivity – 0.2 W/mK (watts per meter Kelvin). Whereas the thermal
conductivity of an aluminum plate is around 200W/mK, which is 1000 times higher
than FR4! Therefore, it can be used in products where high speed operation or
heat accumulates.
Metal Core PCB design guidelines
Power dissipation: The most important
factor for designing any metal core PCB
is to estimate the power dissipation at each component location. This will help
you decide which areas require extra copper thickness and thermal vias to
provide better heat sinking for those areas. It is advisable to use professional
software for this purpose as it helps designers quickly calculate the thermal
resistance of components and package footprints.
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