A problem commonly encountered in the thermal analysis of electronic packages is that of thermal spreading resistance. Thermal spreading resistance occurs as heat flows by conduction between a source and a sink with different cross-sectional areas. Examples of two situations involving spreading heat flow are shown in Figure 1. One example is that of a chip mounted on the bottom … [Read more...]
Calculating Spreading Resistance in Heat Sinks
Accident? Consider the scenario where a designer wishes to incorporate a newly developed device into a system and soon learns that a heat sink is needed to cool the device. The designer finds a rather large heat sink in a catalog which marginally satisfies the required thermal criteria. Due to other considerations, such as fan noise and cost constraints, an attempt to use a … [Read more...]
