This is what a typical extruded fin heatsink looks like. It’s made of metal and sits on top of IC packages that themselves are soldered to a PCB. It cools those packages by providing an increased air apparent surface area with which to pass on the heat that has been conducted up through it. Its shape (topology) is in most ways set by the manufacturing process used to create it. … [Read more...]

  With Semi-Therm 31 just a week away I thought it would be a good time to expand on the (metaphorical) electronics cooling drinking game. Something extra to add to your enjoyment of a conference presentation, journal paper and especially a press release. Common electronics cooling industry drivers and concepts crop up again and again (well, they would do, they’re … [Read more...]

  Semi-Therm, the world’s largest dedicated electronics thermal conference, will take place between March 15-19 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California. Now in its 31st year, this IEEE sponsored conference maintains its high standards in peer-reviewed papers covering a range of disciplines within the electronics cooling field.  As usual, the Mechanical … [Read more...]

A full 3D thermal simulation of an electronic system requires, not surprisingly, a 3D geometric representation of the proposed design. Much of the design data for a phone, laptop, blade server, IGBT cooling system, etc. often already resides in an MCAD system and is readily importable into FloTHERM or loadable into FloTHERM XT. EDA design data, be it a PCB layout or BGA … [Read more...]

  Energy isn’t the only thing that is wasted when dealing with hot water supply. Time is as well. The house I live in is nearly 200 years old. It wasn’t a very well made house when it was new and, unlike a good wine, has not got better with time. The retrofitted, refitted, repaired, repaired and repaired again hot water supply system would have benefited from … [Read more...]