Thermal analysis of opto-electronic packages — the Delphi-based compact thermal model and other modeling practices in the industry

The current work presents a comparative study of industry-wide practice of modeling opto-electronic packages for their thermal analysis, with a focus on the DELPHI-type model. A single opto-electronic package that has a representative construction of other types of opto-electronic packages is chosen for this study. This package is Small-Form Factor Pluggable device, commonly referred to as the SFP. Based on the required level of accuracy and computational resources consumed, the SFP is modeled using one of the following techniques; a lumped system of fixed thermal conductivity, a two-resistor network model, a multi-resistor DELPHI-type network model and a detailed geometrical model. In the current study, these modeling techniques are studied in a comparative mode. The performances of the different models are compared to a validated detailed model. Boundary conditions used for comparing the different models with the detailed model is decided based on practical situations commonly encountered by SFPs in system-level models. The practical situations also include cage-level installation of the SFPs. In addition to presenting the performance of each modeling technique with respect to the detailed model, discussion on their advantages and limitations are also included in this paper.