electro-thermal | PartQuest™ Explore

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Designer

Description

This example shows the importance of modeling thermal interaction effects, or "thermal crosstalk", in power dissipating circuits. The "design" is a simple transistor amplifier, using just an 8 Ohm pull-up resistor and an active pull-down NPN BJT. Both of these models are from our "Thermal and Electro-thermal" Components Library, so they have a thermal port that can connect to an external thermal network. These models output all power dissipated in the device as a thermal heat-flow into that network.

The thermal network includes the heat-sink's heat capacitance (0.1 J/degC) and heat transfer resistance to the ambient (10 degC/Watt). This assumes the resistor and transistor contribute heat to the same heat-sink. The transistor's thermal heat-flow path also includes an 8.8 degC/Watt resistance, to represent the Junction-to-Lead Thermal Resistance as published in the device datasheet (Diodes Inc. FZT869).

From the simulation results it is clear that the heat-sink temperature rises to nearly 120 degC (purple waveform), causing the transistor's junction temperature to approach 150 degC (average, red waveform). This is significantly higher than the value predicted in the companion design example: "Modeling Transistor Amplifier Self-Heating - Hot Part Monitor", which assumed the two devices were thermally isolated.

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Colin_Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Wed, 12/16/2020 - 20:27

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Copy of Colin Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Mon, 12/14/2020 - 19:02

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Colin Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Mon, 12/14/2020 - 17:42

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Copy of Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Sun, 12/13/2020 - 00:29

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Copy of Not tunable Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Fri, 12/11/2020 - 23:45

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Copy of Electro-thermal Trade-off Analysis for AC-DC Converter with Current Boost Regulator - on Thu, 11/19/2020 - 15:03

Designer

Description

This example shows the capability of modeling the electrothermal aspects of power dissipating circuits. The design is a 5V regulator (non-switching), driven from a 120 Vac/60 Hz input and using a transformer/rectifier circuit to step down to a much lower DC-link voltage.

The load current capability is 5A, which is well above the current limit of the linear regular component itself. This is thanks to the load sharing role of the bypass PNP transistor. The design is based on an example application circuit shown in Figure 11 of the On Semiconductor Datasheet MC7800/D, November 2014 - Rev. 27.

All of the power dissipating electronics' models are from the "Thermal and Electro-thermal" Components Library. They have a thermal port that connects to the thermal network (i.e. red wires). These models output all the power dissipated in the device as a thermal heat-flow into that network. This includes the rectifier diodes, the linear regulator and the BJT, as well as the current sense resistor and the effective winding resistances of the transformer primary and secondary.

The thermal network includes the heat-sink's heat capacitance (0.1 J/degC) and heat transfer resistance to the ambient (1 degC/Watt), as well as the datasheet published values for the junction-to-lead thermal resistances of all the active electronic components. An assumed value for the thermal capacitance of the BJT (0.005 J/degC, not provided by the manufacturer) was added for purposes of illustration. Obtaining the actual value would require deeper analysis or measurement of this important component characteristic. However, in this example, both thermal capacitance values were selected solely to give sufficiently fast thermal time constants, so that steady-state operating temperatures could be reached with minimal simulation time.

This design is based on another shared design:

"https://www.systemvision.com/design/ac-dc-power-adapter-current-boost-regulator", That design has been modified not only to add the electrothermal aspects, but it was also adjusted to improve its observed thermal performance. For example, the DC-link capacitance (c3) was increased from 4700uF to 22000uF, to allow a reduced DC-link operating voltage (i.e. to improve efficiency) while avoiding regulation drop-out at AC zero-crossings under heavy load conditions.

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Copy of Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Thu, 11/19/2020 - 17:33

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

About text formats

Copy of Analog LED Driver with Thermal Protection using FloTHERM Netlist - on Thu, 11/19/2020 - 17:33

Designer

Description

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

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

The "Thermals" (thermal dynamics) model was automatically generated from a full 3D-CFD analysis of the spotlight board layout and enclosure, using FloTHERM. The model is in the IEEE Standard VHDL-AMS format, 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&nbsp;"thermally-aware" circuit function design&nbsp;and board layout&nbsp;processes.

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Copy of Coordinated Electrical and Thermal Design for a Linear Regulator Circuit - on Wed, 11/18/2020 - 14:38

Designer

Description

This design example demonstrates electro-thermal trade-off analysis for power dissipating circuits. The design includes a 3.3V linear regulator that drives up to 1A of load current. To reduce the input voltage to the regulator and thereby reduce its power dissipation, a series NPN transistor with a zener diode controlling its base voltage is used.

To explore the design trade-offs, the user can change the zener voltage and re-run the simulation. This will result in not only a change to the electrical voltage split across the transistor and regulator, but also a corresponding change to their observed junction temperatures. The user can also change the values of the thermal resistances (from case to ambient*) for those components, to identify the heat-sink or other thermal mitigation required to meet all the design constraints of this circuit.

The user can also change the circuit's operating environment, including the battery voltage, the ambient temperature and the load resistance (initial and pulse values).

*Note: The junction to case thermal resistances are specified by the manufacturer for these parts, so they cannot be changed by the circuit's thermal designer.

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