Press Release: Electronics Weekly 12-18 Aug 2009

Thermastrate seeks production funding.

Northumberland start-up is ready to take flexi-PCB heat transfer technology to wider market, writes Steve Bush in Electronics Weekly 12-18 August 2009

Thermastrate seeks production funding Northumberland-based thermal management start-up Thermastrate is looking for a final round of funding. The firm has already received more than £600,000 towards the development of its proprietary heat transfer technology, which combines
flexi-PCBs and heatsinks in a way that achieves 90W/mK heat flow – claimed to be twice that of conventional metal-cored PCBs. LED light engine makers and concentrator- style solar cell developers have been early adopters, with architectural lighting prototypes shipping in 1,000-off quantities. Now the firm feels ready to find volume customers. “We are embarking on a round of fund raising, looking for £500,000 to push sales and marketing and give us
working capital for both LED and solar activities,” chairman Neil Loxley told EW. “We are transitioning the business from supplying prototypes to production to increase the number of customers and take some of them to volume.”
The firm’s fundamental technology is to oxidise the surface of a heatsink in a way that produces a thin high-grade dielectric layer, onto which are bonded copper tracks carrying power devices. The copper is bonded in two ways: Flexitherm achieves the 90W/mK by attaching a flexi PCB onto the aluminium oxide layer using 9-10μm of thermal adhesive – the flexi allowing signals and power pass to other circuitry, and also allows one PCB to be used across a non-co-planar heatsink. Ultratherm improves this to 140W/mK by plating copper tracks
directly onto the oxide layer. Recently the firm added AlAsC heatsinks, which better match the
thermal coefficient of silicon for direct die-attach.

Initial funding came from North Star Equity Investors’ Proof of Concept Fund in 2005. Then North Star added £430,000 from its Co-Investment Fund at the same time as £220,000 from private investors. This year, North Star put in a further £60,000, alongside a £90,000 grant from regional development agency One North East, specifically to allow Thermastrate to develop its solar heatsinking technology, which gets heat out of solar cells fed by concentrating
mirrors and lenses. “We are expecting to ship solar prototypes this year,” said Loxley. ●