Aside from energy consumption, fans occupy valuable space in the designed product, pose engineering challenges, and are noisy and prone to failure due to their moving parts.
As electronics have become increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, and components and products have been designed with ever-smaller dimensions, the availability and diversity of thermal management materials have evolved to meet these new challenges.
Around 25 years ago, the options were fans, thermal grease, and heat sinks. Today, the offering has expanded to include a vast array of thermal management materials, including fully dried gels, insulating pads, adhesive tapes, and perhaps the most effective solution of all: the silicone-based gap filler pad.
In recent years, a growing trend has been to use cases and racks as heat sinks for equipment. This has been facilitated by the availability of suitable, thermally efficient, silicone-based materials: gap fillers. By inserting a piece of soft filler material, such as Parker Chomerics' THERM-A-GAP™, between the heat-generating device and the case or chassis, heat can be dissipated very effectively. Used in this way, fillers can reduce the need for fans and heatsinks, while also offering advantages in terms of cost, weight, reliability, and space. Some designs also allow for a hermetic seal, making the resulting products suitable for use in humid environments.

Filler materials are available in a wide range of thicknesses, now exceeding 5 mm, allowing for the filling of very large gaps. Thanks to their extremely soft nature (only 4 Shore 00), wide mechanical tolerances are achieved using only minimal assembly force. With mixing experts, such as Parker Chomerics, who can accurately blend silicone-based fillers using various materials with different thermal conductivity characteristics, designers can select a material that precisely meets the thermal requirements of their specific design.
This is extremely valuable because materials with superior characteristics often use more expensive ingredients or have more stringent mixing requirements.

Looking ahead, the range and functionality of electronic equipment available to businesses and consumers appear to be increasing at an unstoppable pace. From the end-user's perspective, there will likely be greater emphasis on form, function, and energy consumption, while equipment designers will also need to ensure that thermal management remains effective to guarantee the reliability and robustness of their products—a prerequisite for the success of any design.