The Market for Thermal Management Technologies

The world market for thermal management products will grow from about $7.5 billion in 2010 to $8 billion in 2011 and $10.9 billion by 2016, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% between 2011 and 2016. Thermal management hardware (e.g., fans and blowers, heat sinks, etc.) accounts for about 84% of the total thermal management market. This market is expected to grow from $6.7 billion in 2011 to $9.1 billion by 2016 at a CAGR of 6.4%. The other main thermal management product segments (software, interface materials, and substrates) each account for between 4% and 6% of the market. The North American market will maintain its number one position throughout the period under review, with a market share of about 37%, followed by Asia-Pacific with around 23% to 24%.

Additional Information

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, there has been tremendous progress, technologically and in terms of demand, in electronic devices and systems. The technological progress has come on two main fronts: increased functionality on a single device unit, and miniaturization of each unit. Both of these developments have increased the need for thermal management technologies.

“Thermal management” is the term used to describe the array of material technologies and problem-solving design tools that systems manufacturers apply to regulate the unwanted heat caused by the normal functioning of an electronic system.

This report segments thermal management technologies into four segments: hardware, software, interfaces, and substrates.

The hardware segment includes several product subsegments, including heat sinks, fans and blowers, fan sinks, heat pipes, and cold plates. These segments were chosen because they are established technologies and represent revenue markets of significant size.

The software segment consists of electronic design software designed to model and analyze the thermal characteristics of an electronic system design. Specific types of thermal management software examined in this study include computational fluid design (CFD), computational heat transfer (CHT), power management, circuit design, and other electronic design automation (EDA).

Thermal management interface materials are products that stand between a heat sink and the device to be cooled, where their function is to improve the thermal transfer in the joint between the heat sink and the device to be cooled by increasing or securing the area of contact between the two surfaces. In some cases, the interface actually performs the job of the heat sink. This role has become increasingly common in a number of applications in which, due to the height or weight constraints of the system, a conventional hardware heat sink is not feasible.

Finally, the report analyzes substrates, which are the foundations of integrated circuits (ICs), or planar components of electronic packages or modules. The report focuses on substrates that have been developed specifically to enhance the thermal handling capability of an electronic component.