Measurements of temperature in electronic equipment and in thermal characterization apparatus are most often made with thermocouples. As with any sensor, the goal is to gather information about the environment in the vicinity of the sensor, in this case the temperature. Unfortunately the environment around the entire instrumentation chain, including the lead wires and the data … [Read more...]
Optical instrumentation for the thermal characterization of electronic devices
What information does light, reflected from a running electronic device, carry? Our research team has been working upon this key question for almost a decade. As this magazine is dedicated to thermal issues, we will focus upon these aspects of optical probing. Figure 1 shows the general principle of our experimental method. Light is shone upon a running device. When the device … [Read more...]
Quick and easy fan/sink characterization
It is often necessary to generate in-house pressure-drop and base-to-ambient thermal resistance data for ducted fan/heat sink assemblies. For reliable applicability of the performance data, the configuration of the test article should closely match the intended application so that the test article coolant flow characteristics (turbulence level, 3-dimensionality, etc.) match … [Read more...]
Simplified Transient Model for IC Packages
Previous installments of this column have all dealt with situations in which the die temperature was assumed to be at a constant temperature after the system had achieved the steady state. However, there are many times in which it is useful to know how rapidly the temperature of the chip changes when the applied power changes abruptly. This month's column presents a simple … [Read more...]
Thermal joint conductance for graphite materials
The heat flow across a metal/interstitial elastic-layer/metal joint is a very important problem in many microelectronic applications. It is generally known that when two surfaces are brought together, intimate solid-to-solid contact occurs only at discrete parts of the interface. Therefore, the actual contact area of pressed surfaces represents a very small fraction of the … [Read more...]
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