Catalano, Antonio Pio (2020) Numerical simulations and analytical modeling of the thermal and electrothermal behavior of electronic components and packages. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

The demand for electronic circuits with increased performance and reliability is causing industry to focus its attention more and more on thermal-aware design. Because of the higher values of dissipated power characterizing the semiconductor devices in modern technologies, the adoption of efficient cooling solutions represents the current challenge for companies and research centers. In this context, numerical thermal simulations are a valuable instrument since they can be employed to estimate the thermal behavior of the domain under analysis through temperature and heat maps, thus supporting the development of efficient cooling strategies. Devices operating at high temperatures are also subjected to detrimental electrothermal phenomena, which affect the system performance and, consequently, deserve to be examined. This thesis investigates the thermal and electrothermal behavior of state-of-the-art technologies in radiofrequency applications and power circuits. The features of modern semiconductor devices and their main thermal issues are both thoroughly presented. The technology overview covers GaAs-based heterojunction bipolar transistors, SiC-based power MOSFETs, and GaN-based high electron mobility transistors. At the same time, packaging techniques for RF amplifiers, high-voltage power modules, and printed circuit board are explored by highlighting their effect on the electrothermal behavior of devices. A routine devised by the Author to perform finite-element method thermal simulations is presented; such a tool exploits the livelink between MATLAB and COMSOL Multiphysics to obtain exceptionally accurate 3-D representations of the domains under analysis. The comparison between wire-bonding and flip-chip packaging techniques for RF devices, the electrothermal analyses of HBTs arrays, the double-sided cooled technology for power modules, the thermal modeling of cooling solutions for circuits on PCB, and the effect of technology fluctuation of SiC MOSFETs represent only a few examples of the contributions proposed in this work.

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