A thermal modeling methodology for power semiconductor modules

This work presents a flexible thermal modeling methodology for power semiconductor modules. It allows time efficient simulation of temperature cycling for different module designs and operation profiles. To keep the model compact and flexible as well as accurate, the solid state heat conduction paths of the power modules are modeled by a 3D finite difference model. It is combined with an analytical heat sink model describing convective cooling. The temperature gradient of the cooling fluid is captured by a mass transportation model. The resulting linear state space model can be easily formulated in discrete time domain to allow a fast and detailed simulation of thermal load transients. With the balanced truncation based model reduction technique, the thermal state space model is efficiently reduced to allow fast analysis of thermal cycling and reliability issues. Finally, the thermal model is validated with measurements and data from the manufacture. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.