Introduction In recent years, high-power, high-brightness Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have penetrated into an ever-increasing number of lighting applications. For such devices, maintaining a low die temperature is becoming a huge challenge because of the escalating power density (e.g., 200-300 W/cm2 for the latest generation). Active cooling solutions are rarely considered as … [Read more...]
How Much Heat can be Extracted from a Heat Sink?
Thermal transport from a heat sink creates a unique condition in heat transfer and fluid flow once it is placed on a PCB in an unducted fluid flow delivery system. Although a heat sink may appear structurally simple, the fluid flow through its fin field and thermal coupling between it and the surrounding create a rather complex problem. As a result, heat sinks are often … [Read more...]
Thermal Issues in GaAs Analog RF Devices
Wireless communication and advanced radar systems require circuitry that can operate at frequencies greater than 2 GHz and at high power levels. Analog gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors are frequently used in these applications and present additional challenges for thermal engineers compared to silicon semiconductors. Whereas thermal characterization modeling and … [Read more...]
Determining the junction temperature in a semiconductor package, part IV – localized heat generation on the die
In the standard thermal test environment, thermal test chips are designed to dissipate the applied power uniformly over most of the die surface. However, in many situations of practical interest, the power is dissipated over a localized area of the die. This column provides calculation methods to deal with the latter situation. Figure 1 illustrates the situation of interest … [Read more...]
Determining the junction temperature in a semiconductor package, part III the use of the junction-to-board thermal characterization parameter
In recent issues, this column has dealt with the use of a number of thermal metrics to calculate the junction temperature of integrated circuits under various conditions. These metrics explored were JA, JC, and JT. To summarize the uses of these metrics: JA represents the junction-to-air thermal resistance for a package tested in an industry-standard test environment. It is … [Read more...]
