The capability extract shows in thirty seconds what runs as standard and what carries a surcharge.
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To the data check →Copper conducts heat roughly twice as well as aluminium and costs roughly twice as much. That trade is worth making in exactly one situation: when the thermal budget will not close on aluminium and there is nowhere else in the system to take the heat.
A copper-core board is built like an aluminium one — metal plate, thermally conductive dielectric, copper circuit layer — with the plate swapped for copper. The bulk conductivity goes from roughly 200 W/mK to roughly 400, and the thermal mass roughly triples, which also flattens transient peaks in pulsed applications.
Before specifying it, check where the thermal path actually bottlenecks. In a large majority of designs the limiting term is the dielectric, the copper spreading area, or the interface to the heatsink — not the core. Swapping aluminium for copper in those cases doubles the material cost and improves junction temperature by a couple of degrees. When the core genuinely is the constraint, the improvement is dramatic.
About 400 W/mK against 200 for aluminium. Where the core is the limiting term in the thermal path, that shows up directly as junction temperature.
Copper stores considerably more heat per unit volume. In pulsed and switched applications that flattens transient peaks the aluminium version would pass through.
Copper expands less than aluminium, which reduces the shear stress on solder joints of large ceramic packages across thermal cycles.
| Property | Copper core | Aluminium core | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thermal conductivity | ~ 400 W/mK | ~ 200 W/mK | Of the core metal itself |
| Density | 8.9 g/cm³ | 2.7 g/cm³ | Copper boards are noticeably heavy |
| CTE | 17 ppm/K | 23 ppm/K | Closer to ceramic packages |
| Core thickness | 1.0 – 3.0 mm | 1.0 – 3.0 mm | Same range |
| Dielectric | 75 – 150 µm | 75 – 150 µm | Same options; often the real bottleneck |
| Isolation clearance | ≥ 0.5 mm | ≥ 0.5 mm | Core is conductive in both cases |
| Machining | harder | easier | Routing copper is slower and wears tooling |
| Surcharge | + 60 – 120 % | baseline | Against an equivalent aluminium build |
Guide values for pre-selection. Binding values are confirmed per project against your data.
The points below are what most often comes back as a query after data review. Settling them before layout freeze saves a loop.
Run the thermal path before specifying copper. If the dielectric or the heatsink interface dominates, the upgrade buys you almost nothing for a large surcharge.
Copper is electrically conductive. Every hole and routed edge needs at least 0.5 mm of clearance to the circuit, exactly as on aluminium.
A copper-core board is over three times the mass of the aluminium equivalent. In anything that vibrates, the mounting and the resonant behaviour of the assembly change accordingly.
Routing and drilling copper is slower and consumes tooling faster. On complex outlines this is a meaningful part of the surcharge, so simple contours pay off.
Thermally yes, economically usually not. For most LED and power work aluminium closes the budget comfortably. Reach for copper when the calculation says the core is the limit and there is no other lever.
Not to the core. Mounting holes are unplated with a clearance ring. Multilayer copper-core builds with insulated via structures exist but move the price up again.
It is a real consideration. A 200 × 150 mm board with a 2 mm copper core weighs over half a kilogram. In automotive and aerospace that often decides against it on its own.
No, the same thermally conductive dielectrics are used. Which is exactly why the dielectric so often remains the limiting term after the upgrade.
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