Posted Feb 10, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
As with all good inventions, you quickly wonder how on earth you could have done without them before. Relieving thermal bottlenecks reduce temperatures; it’s so blindingly obvious. Now that we have the ability to visualise with FloTHERM exactly where the thermal bottlenecks are in a design, the job of the (overworked/underpaid) thermal design engineer just got that more productive.
Electronic … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
FloTHERM,
bottleneck,
thermal bottleneck,
thermal chokepoint
Posted Jan 30, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
‘Bits stuck onto other bits’, a succinct definition of an electronic product, if not a product that contains electronics. Soldering is the method of choice for getting the components to attach to the pcb, the layered board that contains the metallic traces connecting component pins to other component pins. Rivets, welds, screws or bolts for the chassis, some form of gluing or sticky adhesion … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
FloTHERM,
CFD,
thermal chokepoint,
T3ster,
thermal bottleneck
Posted Jan 22, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
By far and away the most common enquiry by someone using FloTHERM, especially at the start of their adoption, is “How do I model my components?”. This is hardly surprising as the mainstay of electronics thermal management is the control of operating component temperatures (junction and/or case). A virtual prototyping design by simulation approach requires models of components capable of such predictions. … Read More
Tags:
FloTHERM,
NXP Semiconductors,
Electronics Cooling
Posted Jan 18, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
Probably due to the beer fridge, I now seem to be becoming the repository of broken electronic products with an expectation that the cause of their demise can be identified, retrospectively, using thermal simulation. This week my good colleague John Parry dumped a rather poorly DVD player on my desk with a ‘go on then’ look. There’s nothing quite like the sight of a scorched PCB to … Read More
Tags:
bottleneck,
Electronics Cooling,
beer,
thermal interface material,
TIM,
FloTHERM,
thermal bottleneck
Posted Jan 17, 2012, by Travis Mikjaniec
It’s that time of the year, when the weather turns cold and people start to think about winterizing their home to reduce heating costs. Usually it takes the first winter heating bill to provide the motivation to undertake this task. With this in mind, I would like to talk about pipe insulation. Specifically, the foam wrap insulation you can find at any hardware store (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202318552/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)
In … Read More
Tags:
FloEFD,
Heat Transfer,
CFD,
pipe,
Home Improvement,
insulation
Posted Jan 9, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
It’s estimated that, from a figure of 0.4% in 1995, now about 30% of the world’s population are ‘internet users’. Not sure exactly what being a ‘user’ entails; looking at a web page? clicking a link? sending an email? Probably the latter considering how many I receive. The Romans used little wax or wooden tablets, the Victorians introduced a penny-post system, today … Read More
Tags:
Email,
FloTHERM,
Electronics Cooling,
telecoms
Posted Jan 3, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
LED based lighting is now a very hot topic (believe me, in electronic thermal management circles that used to be funny, the first few times). Control of packaged IC junction temperatures will always have a bearing on reliability but for LEDs thermal also effects functional performance in terms of brightness and colour. The hotter they get, the dimmer they appear. A particular contradiction in the context … Read More
Tags:
FloTHERM,
LED,
Electronics Cooling,
TERALED,
LEDs,
T3ster
Posted Dec 23, 2011, by Robin Bornoff
Joseph Fourier led a full and interesting life. Apart from his obvious legacy of Fourier’s Law that relates the temperature difference across a solid to the steady state heat flow through it he was also once governor of lower Egypt and Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. It was with a little more than a passing sense of irony that his belief in wrapping the body up in blankets … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
FloTHERM,
die level thermal analysis,
sub-micron scale
Posted Nov 22, 2011, by Nazita Saye
Have you ever had one of those days where it would have been better to have stayed in bed with the duvet pulled up firmly above your head? I’m sure most of us have had those kinds of days. Last week I was suffering from this malaise. I curbed the front wheel of our new car on the way to work, I dropped my breakfast bagel after taking the first bite (and yes a dropped bagel exhibits the same behavior … Read More
Tags:
FloEFD,
FloTHERM,
CFD,
FloVENT,
Simulation
Posted Nov 17, 2011, by Robin Bornoff
My colleague Ed and I were marvelling the other day at the CPU cooling unit from one of our training desktop PCs undergoing a repair. “What, all that just for that!?”. The CPU itself was but a small square wafer compared to the behemoth that was the ducted fan and heatsink with integral heatpipes mounted on top of it. Whereas transistor sizes are measured in nanometres cooling systems can … Read More
Tags:
CPU cooling,
Electronics Cooling,
CFD,
PC cooling,
FloTHERM,
Heatsink
