Thermal Characteristics of Integrated Module Board

In traditional approach of electronics manufacturing, active and passive components are mounted on printed circuit board (PCB) utilizing surface mount technology (SMT). Due to the continuous miniaturization of electronic products, new innovative packaging technologies have been developed to meet future requirements. Integrated module board (1MB) technology offers solution for embedding active and passive components inside an organic substrate or PCB mother board. Development through three technology generations has enabled cost-effective manufacturing without drawbacks in terms of reliability, yield and system performance. The requirement of decreased product size along with constantly increasing power densities poses an issue of overheating. As embedded ICs are in question, the thermal management of the packages is typically even more challenging: gained benefit in size and weight produces fewer options for thermal management methods. However, despite of lost volume, 1MB technology also offers some degrees of freedom to manage the thermal load produced by ICs. This paper presents the summary of results about the initial thermal studies of the 1MB technology that is also presented in general terms. System-in-board (SiB) and system-in-package (SiP) types of packages have been manufactured and measured in standard natural convection environment and modeled with thermal simulation software. The results have provided fundamental information about the thermal behavior of the 1MB structure - e.g. main heat flow paths have been determined and the efficiency of various thermal enhancement methods has been evaluated.