Fast 3D thermal simulation of power module packaging

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper presents a thermal model that uses a Fourier series solution to the heat equation to carry out transient 3D thermal simulation of power device packaging. The development and implementation of this physics‐based method is described. The method is demonstrated on a stacked 3D multichip module. The required aspects of 3D heat conduction are captured successfully by the model. Compared with previous thermal models presented in literature, it is fast, accurate and can be easily integrated with an inverter circuit simulator to model realistic converter load cycles. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An Improved Electro-Thermal Model to Estimate the Junction Temperature of IGBT Module

“…For example, in [19,20,[22][23][24], the authors proposed the finite element method (FEM) and finite difference method (FDM) to solve the problems of thermal couplings and boundary conditions. In [25][26][27][28], the authors proposed Fourier series-based thermal models with the information of physical structure and material properties to deal with the issues of computational intensity and accuracy. Unfortunately, these studies pay little attention to the device aging effect to the electro-thermal models.…”

A Physical RC Network Model for Electrothermal Analysis of a Multichip SiC Power Module

“…There has been a wealth of work in the thermal models for electro-thermal analysis of power modules [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Finite element method (FEM) and finite difference method (FDM) were commonly employed for the detailed three-dimensional (3D) modeling and accurate simulations of the power packages and/or modules.…”

“…They were further used in the model order reduction approach to generate compact thermal models by mathematical manipulation of linear matrix [11][12][13], or by a generalized minimized residual algorithm [10]. Fourier series based thermal models were also used for 3D transient thermal simulation of power modules, with the assumptions of perfect cuboid for each layer in the packaged structures and temperature independent material properties [7][8][9]. All these mentioned thermal models were developed to solve the 3D heat diffusion equation subjected to the boundary conditions of either fixed temperatures [13][14][15] or heat exchanges with the ambient/coolants [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…Fourier series based thermal models were also used for 3D transient thermal simulation of power modules, with the assumptions of perfect cuboid for each layer in the packaged structures and temperature independent material properties [7][8][9]. All these mentioned thermal models were developed to solve the 3D heat diffusion equation subjected to the boundary conditions of either fixed temperatures [13][14][15] or heat exchanges with the ambient/coolants [7][8][9][10][11][12]. However, the power modules are rarely encountered with a fixed temperature boundary condition in realistic applications.…”