Thermal Management of Bright LEDs for Automotive Applications

High brightness white light emitting diodes (LEDs) have shown to be very promising for many illumination applications such as outdoor illumination, task and decorative lighting as well as aircraft and automobile illumination, including automotive headlights. The objective of this paper is to investigate the cooling solutions of such LEDs in automotive applications. In this research, a thermal design from device to board to system level has been carried out, and optimisation work has been done to find the optimum thermal performance. Both natural and forced convection have been explored and conclusions are drawn for each case in this specific application