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42 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2018 Feature by Pete Christensen MAGI SCITECH With the higher signal frequencies common to most PCBs, and thus greater heat generated inside them, planar thermal management has become an increasingly important issue. While engineers have tried various types of thermal pastes, substrates, and different forms of heat sinks (aluminum, copper, etc.), the electron- ics industry is still searching for a better, more effective, and economical solution that takes up less space. By combining carbon nanotech- nology with the very efficient thermal conduc- tivity of graphene, Magi Scitech has come up with a breakthrough in planar thermal man- agement technology that is nano-thin, offering thermal management options for everything from autonomous vehicles to tablets and other personal devices. For those not yet familiar with graphene, it is an allotrope (form) of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms bonded together by a repeating pattern of hexagons that form a lattice. It is the basic structural element of many other forms of carbon such as: graph- ite, diamonds, charcoal, carbon nanotubes, and fullerenes. Graphene is one million times thinner than paper; so thin that it is actually considered two dimensional. Graphene's flat honeycomb pattern grants it many unusual characteristics, including the status of being the strongest material in the world. Its strength is derived from its unbroken hexagonal pat- tern and the strong bonds between its carbon atoms. These strong bonds are also very flex- ible. They can be twisted, pulled, and curved to a certain extent without breaking, which means that graphene is bendable and stretch- able. A list of graphene's revolutionary mate- rial properties includes: the strongest material ever measured; the thinnest material known to science; highly flexible and extraordinarily light; the most impermeable material on earth; record thermal and electrical conductivity; and incredibly energy efficient. With the advent of automated, self-driving cars, the automotive applications for this new graphene film will expand. As these types of cars will be using more computer power and will have greater CPU power consumption for the console, onboard Internet, wireless net-