Development of JEDEC standard thermal measurement test boards

A combination of experimental and modeling studies has been performed to define the impact of printed circuit board (PCB) design on the measured thermal performance of integrated circuit (IC) packages. These results have been used to develop a joint electron device engineering council (JEDEC) test card standard that allows less than 10% measurement variability between the minimum and maximum limits of the design parameters. At the same time, the standard allows wide latitude in layout for various components. The modeling and measurement studies that were performed to set the limits of the standard test coupons for surface mounted components and area array packages such as ball grid arrays (BGAs) are described, along with extensions in principle to actual devices operating in systems.