Linear-time 3-D thermal methods for transient electro-thermal simulations

Both users and industries demand devices and systems with higher performances and better reliabilities. To achieve both, an electro-thermal simulator is needed as the thermal aspect of a device, such as the temperature, can play a big role on its reliability. By doing just the electrical simulation, an engineer cannot possibly determine the temperature of operation, and thus cannot know whether the design is reliable. The approach of this work is to separate an electro-thermal simulator into two components, one takes care of the electrical part while the other one takes care of the thermal part. The main focus of this work is the thermal simulator. Two thermal simulators are discussed: the latency insertion method (LIM) and the Douglass-Gunn method (DGM). These two methods are chosen because they have linear complexity, which is valuable when doing a simulation on a large system from the simulation time perspective. In-depth formulations are covered for these two methods. The problem of interest is a large metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). Simulation results of both LIM and DGM are provided and validated using Ansys Icepak, a commercially available thermal analysis tool. Lastly, some comparisons and future work are provided, to improve results and take further steps from this work.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Shiue, Gene

Contributors dc:contributor

• Schutt-Ainé, José E.

• Electro-thermal
• Simulation
• Thermal
• Transient

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Gene Shiue

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99198

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/99198