Thermal simulation for IC devices with large number of heat sources

Due to increasing component density in electronic devices, transient thermal simulations are required to be able to deal with a large number of small size heat sources in a large modeling domain. This paper presents a four-step modeling methodology, which can be applied to this type of thermal problems. The method is composed of multi-scale models and focuses on temporal and spatial temperatures of small size heat sources in a relatively large domain. In large-sale model, small size components are replaced with large volumes, and their material properties are also changed to conserve the thermal resistances and capacitances of the small components. Results from the large-scale model are used as boundary conditions for small-scale model. Mesh reduction and less computation time are the major benefits of the method as compared to directly modeling whole devices. The method is explained and discussed step by step. An example based on a simplified electronic board configuration is provided to demonstrate the methodology.