(Credit: Carbice)
Carbice, a thermal interface material company, is showing off a cutting-edge thermal pad design at CES 2026, which it claims will last for the life of a device with no degradation.
Thermal pads have long been hailed as an easier-to-use alternative to thermal paste, both of which protect your device from overheating. Although it's not overly difficult to plop a pea-sized blob of paste into the center of a CPU, affixing a thermal pad is easier. No uncertainties over quantity, coverage, or placement, and there's less chance of it drying out.
Carbice's Ice Pad, which debuted last summer, is made up of twin layers of carbon nanotubes, and a thin layer of aluminum, allowing for the fast and efficient transfer of heat energy away from the component to which it's attached. It's large and uniform, covering the entirety of a CPU. That should equate to more efficient cooling, but Carbice is also touting extreme longevity.
"No reapplication needed. Rated for the system’s lifetime," it says. "True highest performance that improves with time, like a well-aged wine."
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(Credit: Carbice)With claims of in-plane thermal conductivity of up to 200 W/mK (Watts per meter-Kelvin), it should be at least as good as other thermal pads and materials on the market. We'd like to test this for ourselves, but Carbice isn't some unknown entity. It's already secured a deal with CyberPowerPC to act as the thermal interface material (TIM) for its premium gaming systems.
Although the benefits are certainly there for DIY system builders who don't want the hassle of semi-liquid thermal paste, the benefits for pre-built systems are even greater. They are designed to be hands-off and as low-maintenance as possible. Ditching thermal paste for an advanced thermal pad makes a lot of sense. That CyberPowerPC contract does too.
One potential issue commenters noted on TechPowerUp is that carbon nanotubes can be electrically conductive. That could raise the prospect of shorts if the Ice Pad is improperly applied, though that aluminum layer could help prevent that. Unlike liquid metal, the Ice Pad is a solid-state TIM, so it won't slide around and can't be squeezed out if you overtighten the screws.
Still, the performance claims will need to be tested if the DIY community is going to embrace the Ice Pad over more conventional alternatives. Competition in the TIM market is stiff, with little to differentiate the available options. At the end of the day, it all looks like gray paste or gray pads.