PROFIT: A New European Project Addressing Thermal Issues In Electronics
The European Commission has accepted a proposal for a collaborative research project to address many of the outstanding issues related to the thermal design of electronics.
Business Objectives Addressed by the Project.
Many business objectives related to yield, performance, reliability or safety are functions of temperature gradients. Higher accuracy in temperature predictability gives better control of design and manufacturing. Higher-quality products have a positive impact on the product's life-cycle-cost and people's quality of life.
Specific Aims of the project
PROFIT aims to create methods and tools to enable a timely assessment of the thermal parameters that affect these business objectives in all stages of the product creation process. Today’s analyses are seriously hampered by the lack of methods to predict temperature gradients in time and space at package, board and system level with sufficient accuracy.
The project aims to overcome these drawbacks by major improvements in experimental techniques to acquire input data, in non-linear parameter estimation methods and in transient thermal characterisation of components.
Standardisation is considered an important deliverable. Ultimately, the results are suited for implementation in emerging virtual prototyping methods and physics-based reliability analysis software.
The industrial challenges and solutions offered by PROFIT are:
1. Cost/weight reduction with better quality: significant improvements in temperature prediction for virtual
prototyping
2. Physics-based prediction of reliability: accurate predictability of temperature gradients in time and space
3. Yield improvement of packages: better-defined rejection criteria based on in-line quality testing
4. Awareness of problems due to the absence of useful design specs: dissemination of combined thermal
expertise in Europe
5. Standardisation of thermal characterisation: European focal point to support international efforts.
Description of the work
The work will be directed towards major improvements in thermal analysis of the whole electronic design chain, from device via package and board to system. Important data required for accurate numerical analysis are lacking: interface resistances, emissivities, local boundary conditions and local board thermal conductivities, for which test setups will be built based on transient temperature measurements. Transient measurements at device and package level will be performed to assess their quality. Analysis of the data will be treated with novel non-linear parameter estimation methods. Software will be improved, developed and integrated to facilitate the application of the project results in performance and reliability calculations. Various demonstrators showing the final deliverables are foreseen. The thermal characterisation of steady-state compact models will be extended to the transient domain. Yearly workshops will be organised to promote discussion amongst experts, and to facilitate early standardisation. In short, the innovative elements are:
**Novel statistical approach for the optimisation of experiments, analysis of transient data and generation of compact models.
**Novel measurement techniques for the acquisition of input data.
**Novel electrothermal and thermomechanical board/system level software.
**New proposals for the standardisation of transient thermal characterisation.
All parties needed to fulfill the objectives are included in the consortium:
semiconductor manufacturers (Philips Semiconductors, Infineon Technologies, ST Microelectronics)
system makers (Nokia, Philips)
thermal software vendors (Flomerics, MicRed)
an SME focussing on statistics (Centre for Quantitative Methods)
a university specialised in electrothermal analysis and transient measurements (University of Budapest), and
a major research institution contributing in the fabrication of test dies and tool integration (TIMA).
Most partners have a long history in successful co-operation in related fields. The project is coordinated by Philips Research.
--Submitted by Kouchi Zhang of Philips Research for TC-9