Modeling of the thermal effects of heat generating devices in close proximity on vertically oriented printed circuit boards for thermal management applications

The localized thermal interactions between adjacent devices on vertically orientated circuit boards in natural convection are predicted using experimentally validated computational fluid dynamics models. The effects of power density, device proximity, device geometry, circuit board material, board packing density and board separation distance on the steady state operating temperatures are investigated and incorporated into mathematical models which can be used to design packages which minimize thermal interactions. The separation distance beyond which the devices do not thermally influence each other is identified and the influence of various parameters on this distance is studied. The parametric study is designed using Design of Experiments methodology and therefore can be used to interpret the interaction between independent parameters. The developed models and methodology can easily and quickly be applied to other packaging situations to help minimize negative thermal interactions as one consideration in board layout design.