Challenges in thermal modeling of electronics at the system level: summary of panel held at the Therminic 2000

The rapidly shrinking times-to market for modern electronic products are requiring high fidelity system level thermal simulations. Electronic products are characterized by diverse length scales of interest, multiple coupled modes of thermal transport, and presence of multiple flow regimes. Numerous materials and interfaces are utilized in these systems, often displaying highly anisotropic behavior. Thermal management devices such as fans and heat sinks also result in unique challenges in system level thermal modeling. While a number of advances in computational modeling have been made in the past decade, key challenges remain before systems level simulations can be considered truly predictive and can be performed in reasonable time. At the Therminic 2000 a panel was held to identify the key challenges facing the thermal community in the area of system level simulations. Participants from industry and academia focused on gaps in the state-of-the-art in system level thermal/fluidic modeling, and possible ways of addressing these.