THE WORLD OF THERMAL CHARACTERIZATION ACCORDING TO DELPHI - PART I - BACKGROUND TO DELPHI

The accurate prediction of the temperatures of critical electronic par ts at the package, board and system level is seriously hampered by the lack of reliable, standardized input data that characterize the therm al behavior of these parts. The recently completed collaborative Europ ean project DELPHI has been concerned with the creation and experiment al validation of thermal models (both detailed and compact) of a range of electronic parts, including mono-chip packages, heat sinks, electr olytic capacitors, transformers, and interfacing materials. The ultima te goal of the DELPHI project was to get component manufacturers to su pply validated thermal models of their parts to end users by adopting the experimental techniques used to validate the detailed thermal cond uction models of the parts, and the methods to generate compact models , Part II of this paper contains technical information on both experim ental and numerical methods. In order to reduce design-cycle time and physical prototyping, equipment manufacturers need to ascertain the th ermal performance of new systems at the earliest possible stage of the design process, Accurate, validated thermal models of the critical pa rts used in the design are needed to provide the thermal precision nec essary to design out the functional and reliability failures that resu lt from component overheating.