Heat Spreading Calculations Using Thermal Circuit Elements Bruce Guenin, Associate Technical Editor Introduction In electronics cooling applications, there are numerous changes of scale from the chip level to the system level. This is characteristic of the signaling, power, and thermal infrastructures in electronic systems. Because of this, it is inevitable that the heat flow … [Read more...]
Compact thermal modeling in electronics design
Compact thermal modeling in electronics design Sarang Shidore Flomerics Inc Introduction The challenge of accurately predicting junction temperatures of IC components in system-level CFD simulations has engaged the engineering community for a number of years. The primary challenge has been that near-exact physical models of such components (known as detailed thermal models, or … [Read more...]
So Many Chips, So Little Time; Device Temperature Prediction in Multi-Chip Packages
Introduction The same trend that has led to ever-higher levels of integration of computation and processing functions on a single chip is now driving the integration of several chips into the same package. The use of multi-chip packages (MCPs) enables miniaturization of a circuit when it is not practical to incorporate all of the desired functionality on a single chip. The … [Read more...]
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Heatsink
Introduction When faced with the task of calculating the temperature of an IC in a package, which has an external heat sink mounted to it, a thermal engineer usually obtains a values of three thermal resistances: ΘJC , the junction-to-case thermal resistance for the package, ΘCS , the case-to-sink thermal resistance representing the thermal interface material (TIM) between the … [Read more...]
Entrance Effects For Heat Flow Into A Multi-Layer Printed Circuit Board
Introduction Since their introduction, multilayer printed circuit boards have provided a significant benefit to the thermal management of IC packages. As is widely recognized, the power and ground planes in these boards function as fins and spread the heat beyond the package footprint and enhance heat transfer to the air. Heat can flow into these planes by conduction either … [Read more...]
