Transient thermal simulation of power devices with Cu layer

The energy capability of power semiconductor devices is understood in terms of limitation in power density per unit area due to thermally driven failure, dealing with sub-millisecond time ranges. Analytical models are widely used to estimate the temperature changes with various power inputs and operations. This paper presents finite element method based thermal simulation results to understand the effectiveness of the copper thermal management layer integration for the energy capability improvement of power devices. Transient thermal simulations are performed to investigate various process and design parameters, such as thickness, existence of inter-dielectric materials, packaging and heat sink, operating conditions, including multi-pulse operations, and nonlinearity of the silicon thermal conductivity. The simulation data is compared to the experimental data and the mechanics of the copper layer for energy capability improvement are discussed.