Thermacore, Inc. Reaches 40 Year Milestone

LANCASTER, Pa., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Thermacore, Inc. (www.thermacore.com) announced today that it has reached a historic milestone with the company's celebration of 40 years in business.  

Thermacore, Inc. was formed in 1970 for the purpose of transforming heat pipe technology from a laboratory curiosity into a marketable product to enhance standard heat sinks by dramatically improving thermal performance. Since its founding in 1970, Thermacore has produced tens of millions of heat pipes and other thermal management products to provide efficient cooling for military and aerospace electronics, medical equipment, power electronics, computer microprocessors, communications, and other electronic equipment.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Thermacore led the charge in commercializing heat pipe technology for cooling computer microprocessors. The turning point came when Thermacore's sintered powder wick technology became the accepted thermal management solution for a new generation of faster, more powerful processors in the mid-1990s, opening up a wealth of applications and making this technology a de facto standard. Because of that development, virtually every heat pipe with a sintered powder metal wick manufactured in the world today can trace its heritage back to early research and product development performed by Thermacore. They continue to hold that leadership position, moving advanced technology to commercialization with the application of vapor chamber heat pipes to commercial and military platforms, the implementation of pumped liquid cooling for computers and the integration of advanced materials to compliment heat pipe heat sinks, taking these technologies to the next level of integration.

"We're proud to celebrate 40 years as a leader and innovator of thermal management technologies," said Jerome Toth, Thermacore President and CEO. "It's a tribute to the dedication and the engineering excellence of Thermacore employees, and is symbolic of the experience and knowledge that we can offer our customers."

Key Developments

In the course of its 40 year history, Thermacore has benefited from talented and dedicated individuals whose capabilities have made scientific advances possible. Thermacore scientists and engineers have refined and developed many of the world's leading thermal management technologies. The Thermacore team has over 100 patents to its credit and has authored hundreds of technical papers on the subject of thermal management. Several key accomplishments over the company's history include the development of a patented planar heat pipe, or vapor chamber, which offers engineers the ability to have a highly efficient heat spreader that can incorporate "through holes" for design flexibility in attachment to the heat source. Other developments include the commercialization of a maintenance-free pumped single phase liquid cooling system for electronics cooling, and the development and commercialization of high temperature (>600 degrees Celsius) heat pipes for various applications such as semiconductor crystal growth, hypersonic aircraft, thermal storage, and concentrated solar power. Another notable accomplishment occurred when Thermacore expanded its offering of aerospace thermal control products. With over 20 years of Constant Conductance Heat Pipe (CCHP) flight heritage, Thermacore expanded its aerospace product offering by transferring a specialized technology called a "loop heat pipe" to the United States from a Russian entity in the early 1990's, which culminated in a Loop Heat Pipe Flight Experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia on STS-87.  

The Thermacore organization itself has also evolved and grown over the years. Thermacore Europe was established in 1998 with the acquisition of Isoterix Limited, a thermal management solutions provider in the United Kingdom. This acquisition further broadened Thermacore's global reach. Most recently, in August 2009, Thermacore completed the acquisition of k Technology Corporation in an effort to expand its thermal solution offerings with encapsulated Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite (APG) solid conduction heat spreading technology.

Top Ten Highlights

1. Acquired k Technology Corporation (2009)
2. Acquired Isoterix Limited, establishing Thermacore Europe (1998)
3. Managed the commercialization of sintered powder metal heat pipes for computer central processing unit (CPU) cooling, which is the world standard for computer microprocessor cooling (1990's)
4. Accepted Micro-technologies for Air-Cooled Exchangers (MACE) award from DARPA to develop the next generation of air-cooled heat exchanger for cooling military electronic equipment (2008)
5. Lead the commercialization of vapor chamber technology – planar heat pipe (1996)
6. Received AS9100 certification (April 2009)
7. Became the first U.S. company to license loop heat pipe technology (design, develop and manufacture) from a Russian entity for satellite thermal control (1992)
8. Thermacore's management team purchased the business from Modine Manufacturing Corporation, leading Thermacore back to independence from being a wholly-owned subsidiary (May 2008)
9. Developed pumped, single-phase liquid cooling system for electronics cooling (2003)
10. Awarded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Technology Company of the Year for its ability to transition a technology to product (October 1996)

Thermacore continues to innovate, and to coincide with their 40 year milestone, Thermacore released a completely revised and updated Web site to align more closely with the company's continuous technological advancements.

About Thermacore, Inc.

Founded in 1970, Thermacore specializes in the custom design, development, and manufacturing of highly engineered thermal management systems and components for a variety of OEM applications across a diversified set of global markets that includes Military/Aerospace, Computer, Communication, Energy Conversion, Medical, Transportation, Test Equipment, and Automotive. With over 40 years of experience in the design, development, and manufacturing of passive two-phase systems, Thermacore brings unparalleled engineering design expertise and thermal solution performance, quality, and reliability to these markets. Thermacore employs more than 175 employees at 2 facilities located in the United States (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and the United Kingdom (Ashington, Northumberland). Thermacore facilities are AS 9100 Rev B. standard, ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004 certified. For information about Thermacore, visit www.thermacore.com.

Related Links:

Thermacore Home Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/default.aspx

Milestone Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/about/history.aspx

Military Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/industries/military.aspx

Aerospace Electronics Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/industries/aerospace-avionics.aspx

Medical Equipment Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/industries/medical-test-equipment.aspx

Power Electronics Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/applications/power-electronics-cooling.aspx

Computer Microprocessors Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/industries/computers-data-centers.aspx

Communications Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/industries/communications.aspx

Sintered Powder Wick Technology Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/thermal-basics/heat-pipe-technology.aspx

Vapor Chamber Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/products/vapor-chamber-assembly-heat-spreaders.aspx

Pumped Liquid Cooling Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/products/liquid-cooling-systems.aspx

Thermacore Europe Home Page:

http://www.thermacore-europe.com/

k Technology Page:

http://www.thermacore.com/products/advanced-solid-conduction.aspx

SOURCE Thermacore, Inc.