Recently, Tesla filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation. From May 23, 2022, some domestic Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles with production dates from October 19, 2021 to April 26, 2022 will be recalled, totaling 107,293 vehicles.

Some vehicles covered by the recall may not have adequately cooled the central processing unit of the infotainment system when preparing for or during DC fast charging. It will cause the CPU to slow down and the display of the central touch screen to be sluggish. In severe cases, the CPU may restart and the display cannot be displayed.

It is understood that the main control of Tesla's infotainment module MCU3.0 is the newly upgraded AMD Ryzen Embedded APU, with AMD RDNA2 architecture GPU discrete graphics card, and 8GB GDDR6 external display, which can be said that the computing power of the desktop computer is moved to the car.

Stronger computing power will bring a smoother control experience, Tesla is equivalent to moving the "PS5" into the car, buying a car and giving it a game console, which can run large-scale games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher. Now the car is more playable and entertaining.

However, the powerful computing power brought by the ultra-high performance of AMD chips also generates more computing heat. Since Techinno stated in the article "Techinno Fill-LM800 Provides A High-Performance Solution For Thermal Management of Laptop" (Click to view), "Higher performance often tends to have higher power consumption, which means that the product is more demanding on heat dissipation."

It can be seen from the disassembly video on the Internet that the main chip of Tesla MCU3.0 chooses mainstream thermal conductive gel as the heat dissipation solution. In this regard, some people in the industry believe that the power of the chip before the upgrade is only 12W, and it is no problem to use gel. However, after the upgrade, the power and power consumption have increased significantly, and the 2.0 thermal conduction scheme will inevitably have the risk of overheating.

Tesla's response is very simple: upgrade the infotainment system through OTA and strengthen the management of chip temperature control.

But it is undeniable that as the car is used for longer and longer, the temperature control accuracy of the chip is likely to be reduced due to aging, wear and other reasons. Chips will be exposed to more thermal runaway risks at any time.

Of course, thermal design is an overall solution, and here Techino only gives professional analysis from thermal conductivity materials. From this point of view, replacing the material with lower thermal resistance value directly can fundamentally eliminate the problem of chip overheating.

Generally speaking, reducing thermal resistance can be achieved by reducing BLT or increasing thermal conductivity. However, it should be pointed out that the current MCU devices have uneven structural gaps due to process problems. Therefore, without changing the existing structural design, gaskets or gels as gap fillers are still the first choice for thermal design.

Therefore, from the perspective of cost, convenience, etc., perhaps directly replacing the thermal conductivity material with higher thermal conductivity is the best solution for Tesla to improve the overheating problem of the chip after recalling the vehicle.

Specifically, the replaced thermal interface material needs to meet the following conditions:

High reliability and high stability

High thermal conductivity

Low outgassing, low oil bleeding

Anti-vibration, anti-temperature fluctuation

Automotive grade application temperature

In recent years, with the upgrading of automotive chips, the mainstream thermal conductive materials in the market have gradually changed to high thermal conductivity gap-filling materials.

In recent years, with the upgrading of automotive chips, the mainstream thermal conductive materials in the market have gradually changed to high thermal conductivity gap-filling materials.

Gel is widely used in automobiles because of its automated dispensing process, good gap filling ability and surface wettability. However, its degree of cross-linking is much lower than that of traditional gaskets. In particular, the cohesion of high thermal conductivity gels is generally poor, and there is basically no residual stress. It is easy to detach from the upper and lower interfaces in the case of temperature changes and vibrations, resulting in the failure of the thermal conduction path. .

Based on reliability considerations, Techinno provides a more reliable high-performance solution for the heat dissipation of the highly integrated automotive MCU central control chip:

Fill-Pad US1200

Techinno Fill-Pad US1200 is a high performance gap pad material which combines 12W/m-K thermal conductivity with high compressibility under low pressure. It is designed for high power and high heat applications requiring low compression force to conform over large dimensional

variances or multiple gaps. The unique formula enables low compression stress while also remaining minimal residual stress on components. Its good surface wetting capability minimizes the interface thermal impedance. Fill-Pad US1200 is especially suitable for applications which is sensitive to siloxane volatiles. It has very low outgassing and low oil bleeding performance.

Features

• Thermal Conductivity：12W/m-K
• Good surface wetting property
• Low compression force
• High compressibility
• Low oil bleeding
• Low outgassing, ∑D3-D10 (< 100ppm)

Typical Application

• Telecommunications, wireless infrastructure & network servers
• Optical modules
• Automotive electronics
• Hard disk drives and solid hard disk memory devices
• Industry, LED lighting and power modules

Fill-Pad US1200 is a high-performance ultra-soft thermal pad independently developed by Techinno, with strong thermal stability and reliability.

Contrary to the conventional high-wattage gaskets, the Fill-Pad US1200 has a high power of 12W, while the gasket itself is still soft. For the using environment of the automotive MCU central control chip, the soft interface and weak residual stress can conduct heat more efficiently, prevent the chip from suddenly flooding into a large amount of air due to thermal expansion or vibration, affecting the heat dissipation effect.

In terms of thermal stability, the performance of the Fill-Pad-US1200 is surprising. In the environment of 10psi-70psi, the thermal resistance is stable and does not fluctuate greatly.

The thermal resistance of Fill-Pad US1200 is stable throughout the reliability test process. Under continuous high temperature, high and low temperature shock and HAST test conditions, Fill-Pad US1200 can maintain its initial thermal performance, and there is no sign of thermal conductivity degradation.

After using AMD's CPU and GPU, Tesla has built the strongest car-Computer, and the performance is even stronger than the laptop in your hand. This means that Tesla has moved the computing power of the desktop PC into the car, and this set of super smart cockpit hardware has  led the wave of car intelligence once again.

In fact, the wave of intelligence has already swept the entire automobile industry, and the competition for the performance of the intelligent vehicle system has become more and more fierce. Tesla's latest MCU3.0 will not only crush all current mass-produced cars in performance, but will still be in the leading position even compared with the latest chips to be released in 2023.

Could this be the beginning of high-wattage thermal pads dominating MCUs? At least Techinno has been fully prepared for this wave of intelligence with the Fill-Pad US1200.