Microelectronics Reliability 55 (2015) 383388

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Microelectronics Reliability
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/microrel

Thermal characterization of high power LED with ceramic particles

lled thermal paste for effective heat dissipation
Nur Hasyimah Hashim, P. Anithambigai , D. Mutharasu
Nano Optoelectronics Research Laboratory, School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 24 February 2014
Received in revised form 12 October 2014
Accepted 13 October 2014
Available online 22 November 2014
Keywords:
Filler dispersion
Light emitting diode
Thermal interface material
Thermal transient measurement

a b s t r a c t
The next generation packaging materials are expected to possess high heat dissipation capability. Understanding the needs for betterment in the eld of thermal management, the present study aims at investigating the package level analysis on a high power LED. In this study, commercially available thermal
paste was heavily lled with ceramic particles of aluminium nitride (AlN) and boron nitride (BN) in order
to enhance the heat dissipation of the device. Different particle sizes of AlN and BN llers were incorporated homogenously into the thermal paste and applied as a thermal interface material (TIM) for an effective system level analysis employing thermal transient measurement. It was found that AlN TIM achieve
less LED junction temperature by a difference of 2.20 C compared to BN lled TIM. Furthermore, among
D50 = 1170 nm, 813 nm and 758 nm, the AlN at D50 = 1170 nm was found to exhibit the lowest junction
temperature of 38.49 C and the lowest total thermal resistance of 11.33 K/W compared to the other two
llers.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductors, and like all
other solid state technology, they are getting better and cheaper
on a predictable curve. The reasons LEDs have taken on the aura
of inevitability; due to their high efciency, good reliability, long
lifetime, variable colour and low power consumption [1]. The
promising features of LED technology have attracted a great deal
of attention from the lighting industry. It has been stated that overall, the solid state lighting market will enjoy a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 12% by 2017 [2].
Despite the rapid gain, high power LEDs decrease in package
size and also the operating parameters keep on increasing. The
excessive rise in the junction temperature causes thermal runaway
and catastrophic failures which resulting in a major drawback of
the technology [3,4]. The heat generated at the pn junction affects
the efciency of the light generation process and results in a
measurable drop in LEDs brightness. Correspondingly, if the heat
dissipation is ineffective, heat will accumulate inside the dies
and will affect their chips, electrical and optical characteristics as
well as reliability of the device [5].

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: anithambigai@gmail.com (P. Anithambigai).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2014.10.009
0026-2714/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In short, heat dissipation has become a reason that affects the

performance and reliability of LEDs [6]. It provides a path to dissipate heat generated by LEDs so LEDs can operate at appropriate
temperature range. Therefore, a good margin for thermal dissipation needs to be considered so that the junction temperature (TJ)
will not exceed TJmax [7]. Thus, with the increasing demands of
the solid state lighting industry, better thermal management solutions are needed.
One of the established ways to enhance the efciency of heat
dissipation in LEDs is to improve the thermal conducting properties of the thermal interface materials (TIM). Since LEDs are
designed to dissipate heat at the bottom and projected the light
above [8], thus, enhancement in the TIM properties would be vital
in order to ensure a promising thermal management of these
packages.
An ideal TIM must possess high thermal conductivity and low
coefcient of thermal expansion (CTE). In addition, the material
must be soft enough to be easily deformed by contact pressure
to ll all the gaps between the mating surfaces [9]. In the past decades, a wide range of polymers and conductive llers have been
combined to form composites exhibiting useful properties of TIMs.
Boudenne et al. reported on Cu particles lled polypropylene composites. They found the highest heat transport ability for composites lled with smaller particles [10].

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A study on high ller loading of 57 vol.% of aluminium nitride

lled epoxy composites was reported to have improved thermal
conductivity of 15 times higher than the polymer matrix by itself
[11]. Choi and Kim reported composites of binary particles systems
of AlN and Al2O3. The composites were categorized into two systems, composites lled with large-sized aluminium nitride and
small-sized aluminium oxide particles, and composites lled with
large-sized aluminium oxide and small-sized aluminium nitride. It
was observed that at 58.4 vol.% total ller content, the maximum
values of thermal conductivities of both the systems were
3.40 W/m K and 2.84 W/m K, respectively [12].
In this paper, commercially available thermal paste was heavily
lled with aluminium nitride (AlN) and boron nitride (BN) particles
of different sizes. The compounded thermal paste was tested as
thermal interface material (TIM) in an LED package to study the
improvement in the heat dissipation mechanism of the system.
The effective heat dissipation has been discussed extensively in
terms of the effect of particle sizes of the ceramic llers.
2. Experimental work
AlN and hBN powder were purchased from Sigma Aldrich with
average particle size of 10 and 1 lm respectively. Ball milling process was carried out employing Rocklabs Crushers. The milled
powder with corresponding milling time was categorized as 30,
60 and 120 min which were represented by AlN30, AlN60 and
AlN120 for AlN samples and BN30, BN60, BN120 for BN samples
respectively.
Particle size analysis was carried out on the crushed ceramic
powder using Malvern Zetasizer Ver. 6.11. The crushed powder
was ne processed using mortar and pestle and grinded for
15 min for each sample powder. The ne powder was then made
into pellets using a Specac hydraulic pelletiser with force of
12,000 N. This process was repeated for all the samples of AlN
and BN milled at 30, 60 and 120 min. The particles morphology
was studied using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Samples
were coated with platinum layer in order to avoid charging effect.
On the other hand, the milled powder was incorporated as llers into commercially available thermal paste, Artic Alumina from
Artic Silver Inc which is a mid-density ceramic thermal compound.
The ller to thermal paste ratio was xed as 1:4 by weight percentage (wt.%).
The compounded AlN and BN lled thermal paste was applied
as TIM for CREE XLamp MX-6 LED. The TIM was placed between
the metal core printed circuit board (MCPCB) and the external heat
sink of the system with constant pressure. Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the TIM placement in the thermal set up.
Thermal and optical properties of the samples were tested with
combined thermal and radiometric LED testing. Thermal resistance
and light output measurements were performed for a given set of
ambient temperature and forward current. The ambient temperature was controlled using a temperature controlled peltier xture.
T3ster Master Software was used to capture the cooling transients.
The transients were fed into structure function evaluations. The
device under test (DUT) was heated up for 600 s and the cooling
transients were captured for 600 s as well for all measurements.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the TIM placement in the thermal set up.

The DUT was pressed against the external heat sink at constant
pressure in order to obtain repeatable results.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. SEM analysis of ller powder
SEM images were captured on the AlN and BN pellets as
described in Section 2. Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows the BN30 and
BN120 respectively. As observed, the BN particles get ner as the
milling time increases and the particles exhibit a hexagonal chain
like structure. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the AlN30 and AlN120
respectively. It is seen that the AlN particles are polygonal as
expected, and the particles get smaller as the milling time
increases. Comparing Figs. 2 and 3, it is observed that BN particles
are smaller than AlN employed in this study.
3.2. Thermal transient measurement
Thermal transient measurement enables one to determine the
temperature rise undergone by the DUT driven under specic current. Structure function evaluations on the other hand aids in
determining every region inside an LED package. Each gradient in
a cumulative structure function denotes each layer in a package
which enables one to understand the heat transfer mechanism
inside the DUT.

Fig. 2. SEM micrographs of the BN powder milled at different time, (a) BN30 and (b)
BN120.

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385

3.2.1. Comparison between AlN and BN, 120 min

Fig. 4 shows the temperature rise graph of AlN and BN; 120 min
lled TIM, maintaining the ambient temperature as 25 C. 120 min
sample was chosen for this comparison as it has been reported that
the heat transport ability is high when the particles are smaller in
size [13]. Smaller particles lead to lower inter particle distance

which allow the heat transfer more efcient for a system that
has large interfacial area.
As observed from Fig. 4, the temperature rise graph actually
explains heat path in which the heat travelled in the system. Both
curves moved together until 2.78 s then one curve started to
diverge during the transfer of heat between thermal paste and heat
sink. This suggests that, the internal resistance of the package contributes the largest factor of the temperature rise; followed by the
divergent point as it enters the TIM area and nally into the
ambient.
It is observed from Fig. 4 that junction temperature for BN is
higher than AlN. The junction temperature for AlN samples is
39.26 C while for BN is 41.43 C which is about 10.97% higher than
AlN. This difference in the temperature is as expected due to the
intrinsic thermal conductivity of the ller materials. AlN has a
thermal conductivity of 140180 W/m K meanwhile BNs thermal
conductivity is approximately 33.5 W/m K.
Fig. 5 shows the differential structure function of BN and AlN
lled TIM. Each peak denotes each layer inside the MX6 XLamp
LED. The point of divergence is clearly shown in Fig. 5 where the
junction to board thermal resistance is approximately 9.21 K/W.
The transients diverge signicantly as they enter the TIM area,
allowing one to determine the exact value of the thermal resistance contributed by the LED package. Referring to Fig. 5, the junction to board thermal resistance of the LED tested with BN and AlN
TIM is 13.13 K/W and 11.21 K/W respectively. Again as expected,
the thermal which is resistance of AlN TIM is lowering compared
to BN TIM due to the intrinsic thermal conductivity of the ller
materials.
In addition, the heat transfer through AlN TIM is more effective
due to the viscosity of the TIM compounded. In present work, as
mentioned above, the mixing ratio was xed at 1:4, 1 part ller
and 4 parts thermal paste. Due to the nature of BN powder which
has a very low density of 2.10 g/cm3, the process ability was tough
as it requires more BN powder compared to AlN with a higher density of 3.26 g cm3. Thus, with less ller powder required, the viscosity of AlN compounded TIM was maintained within process
ability and the ow characteristics of the TIM was more spreadable
compared to BN compounded TIM which was too viscous. Thus,
besides the intrinsic thermal conductivity factor, the process ability of TIM compound is equally important to ensure a good heat
transfer mechanism.
Since, AlN showed better performance with lower junction temperature and thermal resistance, so the subsequent experiments
were carried out using AlN ller. Characteristics of AlN lled TIM
was further studied in order to observe the inuence of particle size
in enhancing the system level thermal analysis of LED packages.

Fig. 4. Temperature rise of AlN and BN lled TIM.

Fig. 5. Differential structure function of BN and AlN lled TIM.

Fig. 3. SEM micrographs of the AlN powder milled at different time, (a) AlN30 and
(b) AlN120.

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350 mA. Fig. 6 summarizes the total junction to ambient thermal

resistance for all AlN TIM under different ambient temperature.
It was observed from Fig. 6 that, there were no clear trends in
thermal resistance rise with ambient temperature. Every sample
showed random value of thermal resistance in which no signicant
trends was observed from different ambient temperature. This
suggests that the change in ambient temperature did not affect
the overall performance of the LED with different AlN TIM.

Fig. 6. Total junction to ambient thermal resistance against ambient temperature.

Fig. 7. Average particle size of AlN with respect to milling time.

3.2.2. Effect of ambient temperature

In order to investigate the behaviour of the compounded AlN
TIM with ambient temperature, another set of experiment was carried out with the ambient temperature varied from 25 to 85 C at
an interval of 20 C. The driving current was held constant at

3.2.3. Effect of particle size

Fig. 7 shows the variation of particle size of AlN with respect to
milling time obtained from particle size analysis.
From Fig. 7, it is clear that the AlN particle size decreases from
1170 nm to 758 nm with increase of milling time from 30 to
120 min. There is a drastic drop of approximately 31.3% in the
average particle size of AlN and the rate of reduction has also
dropped after 60 min.
Fig. 8 shows cumulative structure function of different particle
sizes of AlN lled TIM. For comparison, the unmilled AlN TIM is
also included in Fig. 8.
Unlikely as stated in Section 2, in present study, it was observed
from Fig. 8 that the total thermal resistance of the LED package
with AlN30 TIM is lowered compared to AlN60 and AlN120 TIM,
implicating that the bigger particles have achieved higher thermal
conductivity. Consequently, it has been found that larger particles
form a thicker conductive path, reducing the interfacial phonon
scattering between the matrix and the llers [14] and hence form
an increased thermal conductivity of the composite. Due to an
increased contact area and the interfacial thermal resistance which
becomes increasingly dominant as the particles becomes smaller
[15], a signicant rise in the total thermal resistance of the LED
package has been recorded comparing all three cases. Thus, from
the curve, the thermal resistances of AlN30, AlN60 and AlN120
TIM are found to be 11.33, 11.43 and 11.63 K/W respectively.
The differences in these thermal resistance values can be further explained with the SEM images of the dispersion of AlN particles in the thermal paste. Fig. 9(a)(c) shows the dispersion of
AlN30, AlN60 and AlN120 particles respectively incorporated into
the thermal paste.
The polygonal grains found in Fig. 9 are the AlN particles. As the
milling time increases, it is signicantly noticed that the AlN particles becomes smaller in size. Moreover, if observed carefully, the
ller dispersion in Fig. 9(a) and (b) shows randomly packed particles in which various big and small grains are visible. This packing
orientation is another reason for the total thermal resistance of the

Fig. 8. Cumulative structure function of different particle sizes of AlN lled TIM.

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LED packages to be low compared to AlN120 TIM. It has been

reported that composites mixed with different sizes of the same
type of ller give higher thermal conductivity compared with the
same type of ller with single particle size [16]. Different sizes of
ller particles when compounded together would increase the
packing density of the polymer composite [17]. As a result, a high
thermally conductive composite can be produced which enhances
the heat transfer [18].
On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 9(c), the increased milling
time has reduced the particles size more evenly in which the llers
are with single particle size after 120 min of milling. An even particle distribution increases the total contact area between particles
and simultaneously increases the interfacial resistance between
particles. Consequently, the total thermal resistance of the LED
with AlN120 TIM was found to be higher as compared to AlN30
and AlN60.
On the contrary, the total thermal resistance value for the
unmilled AlN exhibits the highest thermal resistance even though
the particle size is largest among other samples. This is most probably because, the unmilled AlN particles were incorporated into
the thermal paste without milling process, in which the particles
were utilised as purchased. Thus, the mean particle size is more
uniform (10 lm) compared to the other crushed particles incorporated into AlN30, AlN60 and AlN120 samples. As discussed above,
the heat transfer is much more efcient through llers of different
particle sizes compared to uniform particles.
Therefore, since the AlN30 TIM performs the best among the
rest, the next experiment was carried out with only AlN30 TIM.

387

As the input current increases, the current density at the chip of

the LED may be about 23 orders of magnitude higher than in the
other regions [18]. This current crowding effect produces remarkable temperature non-uniformity in the die which, in turn, affects
the conductivity of the contact layers at the chip level. This effect is
primarily related to the device self heating. Therefore, the current
crowding is a main mechanism responsible for the rise in thermal
resistance of the LED.

3.2.4. Effect of optical power

Meanwhile, as it is widely known, the light output of an LED
strongly depends on the operating conditions. The higher the supplied current, the more light is generated by LEDs. However, when
the forward current increases or when the LEDs are driven at a
constant current source, the temperature gradient increases and
eventually causes a drop in the light output. This signies the
importance of considering optical power into the calculation of
thermal resistance of any LED package [19]. The dependence of
thermal resistance with optical power is shown in Eq. (1):

Rthreal

TJ  TA
P el  POpt

where Pel is the electrical power and Popt is the optical power. Considering optical power in the thermal resistance calculation according to Eq. (1) yields the real thermal resistance values.
Fig. 10 shows the cumulative structure function of AlN30, with
and without optical correction. It was found from Fig. 10 that a combined measurement of thermal and optical gave a signicant difference in the transients where the curves shift to the right. Thermal
resistance increases approximately 5.61 K/W with optical correction. The presence of optical power reduces the heat power and
eventually increases the total thermal resistance of the device under
test where thermal resistance can be obtained. Thus, next experiment was carried out as a combined measurement of thermal and
radiometric to produce more accurate thermal resistance values.
3.2.5. Effect of increasing current
Fig. 11 shows the cumulative structure function of AlN30 TIM
with different current.
The driving current was increased from 150 to 350 mA at an
interval of 100 mA at ambient temperature of 25 C.
As observed from Fig. 11, the transients of all three samples follow the same pattern form junction to ambient denoting that the
TIM has got insignicant inuence on the increasing driving
current.

Fig. 9. Dispersion of AlN particles into the thermal paste (a) AlN30, (b) AlN60 and
(c) AlN120.

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N.H. Hashim et al. / Microelectronics Reliability 55 (2015) 383388

Present work signies the importance of choosing the right llers

and correct particle size of the llers to meet the expectation of
industrial standards for efcient heat dissipation performance.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia
(USM) for the PRGS (1001/PFIZIK/846074) funding.
References

Fig. 10. Cumulative structure function of AlN30, with and without optical
correction.

Fig. 11. Cumulative structure function of AlN30 with different current.

4. Conclusion
A comparison between AlN and BN as llers into commercially
available thermal paste employed is reported in this paper. The
compounded mixtures were used as thermal interface material
for effective heat dissipation of CREE MX6 LED. Among AlN and
BN llers, AlN TIM achieved less LED junction temperature with
a difference of 2.20 C compared to BN lled TIM. This is obviously
because of their respective thermal conductivity values. From AlN
llers of different particle sizes, it was found that among AlN30,
AlN60 and AlN120 llers, the AlN30 TIM exhibits the lowest
junction temperature of 38.49 C and the lowest total thermal
resistance of 11.33 K/W as compared to the other two llers.
In a nut shell, employing llers incorporated TIM results as one
of the improved methods in thermal management of power LEDs.

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