Circuit board designers are constantly pushing heating and cooling boundaries with higher densities, as well as higher power in smaller packages. Thermal analysis is a key step to realizing and solving problems that might arise from these new design features.
Thermal Analysis considerations may include:
- Designing in the proper heat sink
- Coming up with minimum vent holes
- If necessary, using chassis as heat sink and adding external fins
- Maximizing thermal radiation out of the chassis
- Exploring thermal vias under small components which dissipate to the board
- Finding minimum size enclosure for feasible thermal solution
- Creating summary report including results and recommendations (get link to summary report from Farzam)
Deliverables may include:
- Report/presentation with assumptions:
- descriptions of the unit and components modeled
- color temperature and velocity plots
- thermal design solution specifications and recommendations for further improvements.
- Flow and temperature maps
- Heat sink designs and their specifications
- Thermal vias and internal heat spreader specifications
- List of recommendations for further improvements