Balancing thermal pad thickness vs hardness
Thickness sets the thermal-resistance floor; hardness decides real contact area. How both interact with mounting pressure, plus common combos for 1-5W devices.
Pad thermal resistance = thickness ÷ (conductivity x area). Thinner is better but demands flat surfaces - die-cast aluminium skins leave micro gaps that thin pads cannot fill.
Hardness (Shore 00) decides whether a thin pad wets at low pressure: 30-45 Shore 00 soft pads self-conform for spring clips and screw-less stacks; screw-clamped stacks can take 60-70.
Rule of thumb: 1-3W chips use 1mm / 45 Shore 00 / 3W·mK; above 5W use 2mm / 35 Shore 00 / 5W·mK. Full thickness-hardness-conductivity matrices for AOK and CROWN are on the product pages.
