Arctic Silver
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Arctic Silver Inc. is a California-based company that manufactures thermally conductive compounds (sometimes called "thermal grease") and adhesives commonly used for the application of heat sinks to high-powered electronic components.
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[edit] Products
[edit] Arctic Silver 5 (AS5)
Arctic Silver 5 is advertised as high-density polysynthetic zinc, aluminium and silver thermal compound, which has become the company's most popular product. Consisting mainly of aluminium oxide, zinc oxides and boron, it does contain some silver. The little silver it does contain is "over 99% pure" (although since it is mixed with oils and other metals, the purity is moot). It does not contain any silicone and contains sub-micrometre zinc oxide, aluminium oxide and boron nitride particles which help maintain long-term stability.
Thermal resistance of 0.001 in (25 micrometre) layer: <2.9 mm²•K/W (pressure not specified).
It should be noted that AS5, although slightly conductive and capacitive, is not as great a danger to electronics as believed. Its ability to capacitively couple adjacent traces only becomes a problem under high pressure. This is one of the reasons the Ceramique compound was developed.
[edit] Arctic Alumina
Arctic Alumina is a ceramics-based polysynthetic thermal compound, which is similar to AS5. However, Arctic Alumina is manufactured using sub-micrometre aluminium oxide.
Thermal resistance of 0.001 in (25 micrometre) layer: <6.5 mm²•K/W
[edit] Céramique
Céramique is a high-density composite of thermally conductive aluminum oxide, boron nitride and zinc oxide sub-micrometre particles. It is not electrically conductive, which makes it a better choice than Arctic Silver when there is a possibility that the thermal compound could come in contact with the pins of an integrated circuit in a high pressure scenario, such as those encountered when using thermoelectric cooling.
Thermal resistance of 0.001 in (25 micrometre) layer: <4.5 mm²•K/W
[edit] ArctiClean
ArctiClean is a product marketed to remove thermal heatsink paste. Two components are used in a two-step process. The first step utilizes the Thermal Material Remover which emulsifies the existing paste. The second step uses the Thermal Surface Purifier which removes the residue left behind from the first step and to further to clean the surface. The ArctiClean product is RoHS compliant.
