Transient Thermal Compact Models Time Integration with Python

Virtual prototyping is the way forward to shorten development cycles and deliver optimized design solutions for semiconductor components and electronic modules. It allows us to make virtual experiments for devices that have never been built before. We can predict safe operating areas and on the other hand identify critical use conditions. Key requirement for virtual prototyping is an efficient and accurate simulation model that does consider multiple physical domains (e.g. thermal, electrical, mechanical)along with complex 3-D structures. The focus of the current paper is to present an efficient simulation flow for prediction of three-dimensional temperature fields at transient operating conditions with multiple heat sources and associated thermal cross talk at component and system levels. In what follows, we will demonstrate the virtual assembly of an electronic control unit (ECU)and its transient thermal simulation in time domain. We will decompose the unit into its major components for which fast mathematical models will be derived by means of model order reduction techniques. We will then create a reduced mathematical model of the entire ECU by simply interconnecting all components models at predetermined IO/s. We will demonstrate a stimulus-response analysis of the interconnected system and a subsequent result expansion path for 3-D visualization of temperature fields. Finally, we will compare simulation results of the reduced system model with the corresponding full-scale finite element model.