Thermal performance of plastic-encapsulated and hermetically sealed components for automotive applications

In automotive applications reliability and lifetime of electronic components are mainly influenced by aging processes related to superposing effects of mechanical vibrations, thermomechanically induced stress and thermal load. Two of these factors can be minimized by optimizing the component's thermal design. In this work measured and simulated thermal qualities of plastic-encapsulated and ceramic packages are compared. The experimental test procedure and main features of a new thermal simulation tool especially designed for the prediction of thermal characteristics of mono-chip and multi-chip components are discussed. Although, the thermal conductivity of ceramic is high compared to plastic moldings our results clearly show that plastic packages can compete with their ceramic counterparts.