A ceramic assembly includes one or more electrically and thermally conductive pads to be thermally coupled to a heat generating device, each conductive pad is electrically isolated from each other. The ceramic assembly includes a ceramic layer to provide this electrical isolation. The ceramic layer has high thermal conductivity and high electrical resistivity. A top surface and a bottom surface of the ceramic layer are each bonded to a conductive layer, such as copper, using an intermediate joining material. A brazing process is performed to bond the ceramic layer to the conductive layer via a joining layer. The joining layer is a composite of the joining material, the ceramic layer, and the conductive layer. The top conductive layer and the joining layer are etched to form the electrically isolated conductive pads. The conductive layers are bonded to the ceramic layer using a bare ceramic approach or a metallized ceramic approach.