There are a lot of unknown variables in your question. But, it might be save to generalize. There is a difference in performance. If the design really pushes things you may not be able to use the thermal pads. The thermal compound, given ideal conditions will perform better. But, practically, the thermal pads work very well. We found for one design evaluation, given all the variables in production materials and process methods, the pads gave us much less variation in performance and worked better because of it. In another evaluation, where the design operated closer to the edge, we could not use the thermal pads. Imagine two bell curves, one with higher Cp but lower average performance than the other, and you have the results of my experience with thermal compound and thermal pads. In other words . . . Cp versus Cpk -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Eric Kalgren Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 9:04 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Thermal Compound vs. Sil-Pads Good morning everyone! We have an issue that has come up dealing with sinking heat out of a resistor on one of our antennas. We are currently using thermal compound (Wakefield 120) between the resistor and the heat sink. However, we are ramping production up to full tilt and we'd like to use a precut thermal pad (like a sil-pad but a different brand name) to save some time on assembly. Have any of you used these in heat sinking. How do they compare to the goop that is heat sink compound? It is a 150W flange mount resistor by Florida RF labs spec'ed for a max temp of 150*C and a frequency range of DC-2GHz. Thanks in advance for your help Eric Kalgren Manufacturing Engineer Atlantic Microwave Phone: 978-779-7062 Fax: 978-779-0101 --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------