Concurrent thermal designs of PCBs: balancing accuracy with time constraints

A thermal design methodology suitable for concurrent design of cost-driven electronic systems is proposed and exemplified for a sample printed circuit board (PCB). The design methodology utilizes an evolutionary concept, in which the analysis tools are capable of adjusting their level of complexity as the design evolves, initiating with rough approximate analyses and culminating in a conjugate conduction/convection simulation for a portion of the sample board. The level of approximation included at each stage of the design is selected with consideration of both time and accuracy constraints. Furthermore, the importance of considering the conjugate problem in generating heat transfer correlations for electronic packages is discussed