Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

[caspian]

Dear members,

I have got an ordinary gray thermal paste that has no name/model on the box.
I put some of this thermal paste on a 128-pin QFP IC. A bit of this thermal paste was put on pins of the IC.
I tried to clean the pins by thinner but the thermal paste cannot be cleaned from the pins properly. because the pins are tiny and the thermal paste is stuck between them.
Is it possible that the thermal paste damages pins of the IC in long term by creating corrosion or something?
Is it safe to leave the thermal paste on the pins?
I guess the thermal paste might contain a bit of water since it is not dry. Then, Can the thermal paste cause corrosion?

I searched the net and I found this:
"Some thermal pastes cause corrosion with aluminum and with copper it does bond weirdly over time."

Thanks

[stj]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

"liquid metal" can do real damage,
most paste is fine - and it's based on oil, not water

you do want to keep it off pins though - it has capacitance.
white spirit can liquify it so it will come off with a tissue

[budm]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

Example of what some thermal paste caution:
https://www.quietpc.com/as5
Some also electrical conductive:
https://timtronics.com/electrically-conductive/

[televizora]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

For ic you need perhaps thermal adhesive tape or thermal glue. Unless you have other way to fix the radiator firmly to the IC,

[momaka]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

I've used many cheap no-name thermal pastes. Arctic Silver 5 is conductive, because it tends to contain some Silver, if I'm not mistaken. The cheap pastes, on the other hand, tend to be cheap so no Silver or other expensive elements. Instead, they tend to be silicone or oil -based, suspended in oil-like liquid. As such, they are be non-corrosive and electrically non-conductive. In fact, they have to be non-corrosive, because otherwise it wouldn't be possible to use them with Aluminum and Copper heatsinks - the last thing you want is corrosion to form on the surface of those, and then your heat transfer will be greatly reduced. Also, many of these cheaper pastes are so electrically non-conductive, that sometimes if you get it on the pins of a CPU, you may get a dead PC due to CPU not detecting due to pins not making contact in the socket.

So you don't have to worry about cleaning the paste from the IC pins. However, if you want to, it should be fairly easy to do that with IPA (alcohol)... or Acetone in a pinch.

[clearchris]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

If acetone and IPA doesn't work, brake cleaner will take off nearly anything. Just don't burn (solder) the brake cleaner or it will give off very poisonous phosgene gas.

[Andrew LB]

Re: Can thermal paste cause corrosion?

"liquid metal" can do real damage,
most paste is fine - and it's based on oil, not water

you do want to keep it off pins though - it has capacitance.
white spirit can liquify it so it will come off with a tissue

Liquid Metal doesn't cause corrosion. It's made of a mixture of Gallium, Tin, and Indium (mostly gallium) which is an eutectic alloy. If applied to aluminum, it will alloy with the aluminum, turn black, and it will literally start to crumble away. This type of thermal compound is only for use on nickel plated copper, and plain copper. I use the stuff between the integrated heat spreader and the CPU core itself. Works wonders.