GORE Thermal Insulation can be used to block heat from reaching the surface of the device. The thermals of a PC case are often a point of concern due to prolonged contact while typing, or when the device is used in a lap. Heat spreaders are most often used to disperse laptop heat, while insulation is used to prevent localized hot spots from harming users. Insulation can also be used in combination with spreaders in order to better spread the heat.

The memory in a laptop often produces a high heat load. Laptop memory heat spreaders are used to draw heat away from the memory area and move it to another area. Adding GORE Thermal Insulation to these laptop RAM heat spreader designs can help to further reduce hot spots on the laptop case.

GORE Thermal Insulation can also be used in conjunction with vapor chambers in laptops. While vapor chambers excel at moving heat away from high-power components using two-phase cooling technology, the materials used to construct a vapor chamber are thermally conductive in the through-plane direction. This can allow heat to reach the laptop case surface, creating hot spots. GORE Thermal Insulation can be placed atop specific portions of a vapor chamber to increase the efficiency at which the vapor chamber spreads heat, and to decrease hot spot temperatures.

Thermal Conductivity Lower Than Air

With GORE Thermal Insulation, you can now improve the effectiveness of your thermal spreading solutions. With a through-plane thermal conductivity (kz) significantly lower than air, enabled by premium aerogel technology, GORE Thermal Insulation will enhance the heat-spreading ratio and outperform system-level air gaps. It can be used independently or in conjunction with heat spreaders to create a higher-performing thermal design

Experience and extensive testing confirm the effectiveness of GORE Thermal Insulation materials for laptops: Your customers will benefit from improved performance and an overall better user experience

Dell was experiencing excessive surface temperatures above the heat pipe, where there was not room for additional spreading. GORE Thermal Insulation reduced temps and delayed throttling, boosting sustained performance by 15–40%.

Customer testing in laptops has demonstrated surface temperature reductions of 1–6 °C, with results based upon laptop design specifics (power output and thickness available for insulation).

Laptop with 23 W of combined CPU and GPU power after 90 minutes of run time. At left: OEM configuration with 1.2 mm air gap. At right: GORE Thermal insulation (0.75 mm thick) installed in air gap reduced surface temp by 6 °C