Jim Wilson
ElectronicsCooling magazine provided a technical data column from 1997 to 2009 with the intent of providing you, the readers, with pertinent material properties for use in thermal analyses. The most common materials and their associated thermal properties used in electronics packaging were covered. Table 1 lists a summary of the technical data columns divided into two categories, thermal conductivity and everything else. It is of note that thermal conductivity was the most frequent topic of interest. This is no surprise as thermal conductivity is one of the most difficult thermal properties to accurately measure. All of this data is accessible on our web site, which also includes all of the articles that have appeared in ElectronicsCooling.
Once most of the relevant thermal properties had been covered, the technical data column evolved into a “thermal facts and fairy tales” feature. This column has covered a variety of topics highlighting some of the typically overlooked or less understood characteristics of thermal management. Table 2 lists the columns in chronological order which are also available on our website. The range of topics suggests that thermal engineers often encounter complicated physics, especially when trying to match test data to predictions.
Our hope as editors is that you find these topics useful. We are always interested in feedback from our readers so feel free to contact us with your ideas and topics, especially if you have a particular thermal fact or fairy tale. This also provides an opportunity to remind the readers of how we work as an editorially independent publication. For each issue, one of the associate editors assumes the role of editor-in-chief and is responsible for either soliciting new technical articles or selecting previously submitted articles that have gone through a review process and been judged worthy of publication. The review process requires at least two favorable evaluations from independent reviewers based on criteria including technical relevance and soundness, interest to our readership, absence of commercial content, and confirmation that the work has not been previously published. We frequently receive inquiries similar to “I could provide content along the lines of …, would you be interested and/or commit to publishing this?” While we welcome the dialogue, a typical response reminds the writer that we need an article to review and that we cannot commit to publication prior to the review process. However, we never want to discourage interest in publishing and we will certainly work with potential authors to help them develop their articles.
