Investigation of electro-thermal behaviour of a linear voltage regulator and its protection circuits by simulator coupling

This paper presents an electro-thermal co-simulation method which can be used for thorough verification of linear voltage regulators. The method can capture successfully the electro-thermal interaction between the power stage elements and the protection circuits, accounting also for layout variations and packaging conditions. An electro-thermal destruction mechanism of a high power linear voltage regulator (20W/mm²) is investigated in this way. The simulated results have been shown to replicate the measured behavior of the circuits.