State of the art of numerical thermal characterization of electronic component

Latest Computational Fluid Dynamic tools allow modelling more finely the conjugate thermo-fluidic behaviour of a single electronic component mounted on a Printed Wiring Board. A realistic three-dimensional representation of a large set of electric copper traces of its composite structure is henceforth achievable. So it is possible to confront the predictions of the fully detailed numerical model of an electronic board to a set of experiment results in order to assess their relevance. The present work shows that the numerical model error is lower than 2% for various boundary conditions. Moreover the practical modelling assumptions, such as effective thermal conductivity calculation, used since decades, for characterizing the thermal performances of an electronic component were checked and appeared to be very tricky. New approaches must be developed. Further the establishment of a realistic numerical model of electronic components permits to properly apprehend multi-physics design issues.