This LED spotlight example demonstrates the value of simulating both the electrical and thermal aspects of power dissipating circuits together, simultaneously.

In this design, a Vishay NTCLE100 Thermistor is used in a detection circuit to monitor the enclosure temperature. It is used for thermal shut-down protection, to keep the enclosure temperature well below the "Tg" (glass transition temperature) of the spotlight's Nylon 6 polymer lens. This is particularly helpful when operating at higher external ambient temperatures.

Thermal dynamics models were automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis using FloTHERM. This includes a thermal netlist model for the spotlight board layout and enclosure, as well as a BCI ROM model for MOSFET QFN package thermals. The format of both models is IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS, so it can be directly imported into the SystemVision "1D" circuit and system simulation context. The ability to include an accurate model of the thermal environment is key to having "thermally-aware" circuit function design and board layout processes.