Heaters for Medical & Life Science Applications
- Medical Application Heaters
Medical device manufacturers frequently implement new technologies to keep pace with the industry’s rapidly growing needs. The use of precisely controlled heaters has become a critical need in a variety of applications including medical diagnostics, optics defogging, and liquid and gas warming.
Medical and Life Sciences OEMs depend on component suppliers to provide accurate and reliable heating solutions that improve the efficiency of both existing and novel technologies. Fralock has been a trusted supplier to Medical and Life Sciences equipment manufacturers for over 30 years, providing custom-engineered heating solutions used in today’s most demanding applications. We offer multiple material constructions to optimize your temperature, thermal control, and packaging requirements.
Our California facilities are ISO13485:2016 and ISO9001:2015/AS9100D certified, and IPC 1791 listed.
We offer two material technologies to fit your diverse requirements.
Ceramic Heaters – designed for thermal uniformity and extremely rapid thermal cycling in precision medical equipment.
Polyimide Heaters – provide high flexibility, low mass, and can be shaped and formed to solve complex packaging challenges.
CERAMIC HEATERS
Fralock’s ceramic heaters are made using high thermal conductivity Aluminum Nitride (AlN) with multi-layered embedded Tungsten heating traces, providing tailored power input to achieve your temperature transition goals.
Extremely rapid heating in excess of 300°C/sec is made possible because the coefficients of thermal expansion of Aluminum and Tungsten are equal (4.3 x 10E-6 Co). Integrated channel structure and low density AlN ceramic provide quick cooling rates, from 300°C to room temperature in a just few seconds.
Features and Benefits of Ceramic Heaters
- Internal cooling channels
- Robust reliability, proven with millions of cycles in the field
- Multiple zones of heater and sensor traces in various layers
- Tungsten traces are fully integrated and chemically bonded into the AlN microstructure
- Ground plane shielding
- Thin substrates: flat, round or any that geometry can be CNC milled
- Complex geometries that include venting, vacuum, and blind features
- Large format sizes up to 380mm diameter
- Sub-micron flatness is possible
Ceramic Heater Applications Include:
- Polymerase Chain Reaction Equipment
- Mass Spectrometry Equipment
- In-Vitro Diagnostics Equipment
- Tissue Fusion
- Packaging and Sealing Applications
POLYIMIDE HEATERS
Polyimide Heater Applications Include:
- Immunoassay Analyzers
- Liquid and Gas Warming
- Pathogen Detection
- Battery Warming
- Optics Defogging
Features and Benefits of Polyimide Heaters
- Several dielectric and foil options are available. Heaters as thin as 0.0635mm (.0025″)
- Flexibility for heating complex, three-dimensional applications
- Multi-layer and multi-zone heating; can include embedded thermocouples
- Excellent temperature range -269°C to +220°C
- Low out-gassing
Ask us about your flex heater needs.
