Developing world class thermal solutions [for power electronics]

Abstract

In building today's electronic products, many of the sub-systems are designed and manufactured in various places around the world. They only come together at a top-level assembly plant. Here, the author argues that it is most important that designers take necessary steps to develop a sound prototyping process at the concept stage for new product designs. This will ensure that when products come together from several remote assembly locations, less re-design efforts will have to be expended on "after-the-fact" thermal management of the entire system. The underlying goal with all thermal modeling is to develop the most economic cooling system that delivers the most value with the highest reliability. Those companies that can effectively and unerringly merge subsystems together seamlessly will create the final product that is the most competitive.