A 3-D Thermal Model including thermal coupling for Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Module

Abstract

For the study of thermal management of power devices, a typical approach is to use the RC model to describe the thermal state inside the module [1]-[5]. However, there are several limits on the current common practice: First, such RC models are usually one-dimensional, that is, the RC nodes are distributed from top to bottom. However, there is no in-depth study of the state of the node plane; second, the thermal coupling between the chips in the model is not considered, which is different from the actual situation. [6]In this paper, a three-dimensional RC model is built for IGBT module based on the data provided by the finite element simulation method, the module consists of IGBT chip, package and heatsink. Meanwhile, the thermal coupling between the adjacent chips has also been studied, which can numerically reflect the thermal contribution of one chip to another.