Package Junction and Case Temperature Prediction
Adhere to design rules and meet vendor part specifications.
Mentor Graphics has a long history of helping package vendors design more thermally-efficient packages and system integrators improve the accuracy of their part temperature prediction.
Miniaturization continues to increase power densities. As design margins are squeezed, systems integrators are finding it harder to keep components below their maximum specified operating case temperature or junction temperature.
Consequently, accurate component temperature prediction has never been so important. Package vendors must improve the thermal performance of their products and provide thermal models and data to their customers..
Simulation Benefits of Package Junction and Case Temperature Prediction
- Create accurate chip package thermal models and thermal metrics
- Choose the most suitable package type for your product
- Use system- and board-level thermal simulation to improve product thermal design
- Conduct “what-if” testing on package designs without the time and expense of building physical prototypes
An engineer from Texas Instruments demonstrates use of thermal simulation to design FET die layout and performance in the automotive industry. View Video
Application Examples
AMCC Compares Flip-Chip/Wire Bond Thermal Performance to Reduce IC Cost
"Thermal simulation helps us improve the targeted performance to cost ratio of our leading dual port 10Gbps Ethernet PHY family, the QT2225 and QT2235, by enabling us to optimize the trade-off between thermal performance and packaging cost at an early stage of the design process. The ability to generate thermal models of ICs in less than an hour removed the barriers of simulation complexity and time/resource constraints at the early stage of our design process. We use FloTHERM for thermal simulation because it makes it easy and convenient to model different package styles and types."
—Mark Patterson, AMCC® Packaging Engineer
NVIDIA® Uses Compact Thermal Models to Speed Design of NVIDIA nForce™ 4-based Systems
NVIDIA optimizes the package design of its products in order to improve thermal performance and minimize real estate. They also provide customers with detailed thermal guidelines that simplify system design.
NVIDIA uses web-based FloTHERM PACK software to quickly produce a computationally-efficient thermal behavioral model -- known as a "compact" model -- which accurately represents a component's thermal characteristics in any end-user environment. This process substantially reduces the time required to simulate the thermal performance of new products.
"The new approach makes it possible to do a thorough thermal performance evaluation well in advance of first silicon. Only minimal physical testing is required to confirm the accuracy of the simulation during the time-sensitive later stages of the development cycle."
—Mark Hemmeyer, Mechanical Engineer
Redback Networks Creates First Million-Subscriber Platform for Triple-Play Broadband, Phone and TV Services
To obtain the improvement in performance and functionality, power dissipation of the line cards increased twofold relative to the previous generation. This created a thermal management problem since key application specific integrated circuits were already close to their junction temperature specifications. Redback Mechanical Engineer Wendy Lu overcame this challenge by simulating airflow and heat transfer within the enclosure.
Critical components are modeled as compact models. These models are created using FloTHERM PACK which creates compact models using FloTHERM modeling templates called SmartParts. Lu used a combination of 2-Resistor and Delphi models for critical integrated circuit components. She modeled the printed circuit board (PCB) using the PCB SmartPart which allows the user to specify board size and layer count.
Package Junction Tools
-
FloTHERM®
FloTHERM® is a powerful 3D computational fluid dynamics software that predicts airflow and heat transfer in and around electronic equipment, including the coupled effects of conduction, convection and radiation.
-
FloTHERM XT
FloTHERM XT is an industry unique thermal simulation solution designed to be used during all stages of the electronics design process – from conceptual design to manufacturing, improving product quality, reliability and time-to-market.
-
FloTHERM® PACK
FloTHERM PACK automates the creation of simulation-based semiconductor packages, thermal characterization, and the key tasks in semiconductor package design.
-
FloTHERM® PCB
FloTHERM PCB is a radical new collaboration tool for product marketing, electrical and mechanical engineers that accelerates the conceptual thermal design of printed-circuit boards.
-
FloTHERM® IC
FloTHERM® IC is a web-based tool from Mentor Graphics that incorporates a high level of automation for key tasks related to semiconductor thermal characterization and design.
Success Story
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Thermal and stress simulations help AMD avoid costly delays and reduce the development time of their new microprocessor.
View Success Story