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If not limited to trace amounts for microscopic components, in the heat spreading role there could be demand for it in much greater quantity than elementally similar LED pigments.

Most manufacturing materials do not require such careful treatment and disposable -thankfully. The concern is not just about unusual behavior such as 'grinding up and eating'. This is a particularly hazardous material - as documented.

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You're exaggerating how dangerous BAs would be in this situation. As far as I know, useful single crystal boron arsenide is very expensive to make in industrial quantities and it's too brittle to be used as a large heatsink - at best you can grow a several micron thick layer of it on a semi-flexible substrate like for solar panels. Instead, I'm guessing their design uses small quantities of single crystal BAs to interface between the wafer and the rest of the chip package so it would better transfer heat from the internal silicon to a regular heatsink. Thermal conductivity at that interface is a hard limit to how fast the heatsink can draw heat from the chip package and since its contained, toxicity is largely a concern for recycling.

Its a concern for manufacturing, containment and disposal. In few places public disposal and recycling facilities guarantee complete compliance. The materials hazard specs are not exaggerated, they are intended to be taken seriously as they are stated.

"Instead, I'm guessing their design..." There were no designs indicated here, only research on the crystals thermal properties with the vague mention of "electronic cooling" and "potential large-scale applications"

Absolutely, arsenic-containing materials have the potential to be extremely dangerous. Unscrupulous GaAs manufacturers have put their employees at risk in the past.

[0]: https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-axt-way/Content?o...

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