A Thermal Network Model of a Printed Circuit Board Considering the Thermal Contraction Flow Caused by Thermal Vias

As the heat generation density of electronic devices increases, thermal vias are inserted in the printed circuit board (PCB) to dissipate the heat efficiently. Although the effective thermal conductivity of the PCB is important for the thermal management of electronics, measuring the effective thermal conductivity is time-consuming. Therefore, to save time, we focused on the thermal network method and examined the effect of the contraction heat flow around the thermal via on the numerically analyzed effective thermal conductivity of the PCB. The results showed that the contraction heat flow caused by the thermal via affects the range of 7 mm, and the range should be taken care of to express the contraction heat flow appropriately.