Thermal destruction testing: An indirect approach to a simple dynamic thermal model of smart power switches

Automotive power applications based on Smart Power ICs require the knowledge of dynamic DMOS temperature for optimum system design and reliability. An indirect method is presented here that combines a simple theoretical model of heat conduction for short pulses with data from destruction time and energy measurements obtained during necessary destructive testing of integrated DMOS power switches. The proposed "square root law" show a remarkable agreement with experimental data as well as with more complex thermal simulation results.