Thermal Performance Evaluation and Reliability Analysis of Air-cooled Power Modules

摘要

This paper describes the thermal characteristics between water-cooled power modules and air-cooled, and proposes an efficient design of power modules that enables adequate cooling using air as a coolant. The authors have been made some studies about evaluating and designing water-cooled power modules. Based on that, they created an air-cooled model, and performed power cycle test analyses using CAE. The improvements of analysis method made from comparison and discussion of the results are described. Using optimized analysis method, specific improvements of power module's structure are proposed. First, the thickness of the base part of the heat sink that affects the maximum temperature of the chip joining part is considered. Second, substrate material that affects direct heat conduction from semiconductor device to heat-sink is reconsidered. Finally, entire heat transfer design improvement is proposed by introducing heat pipes.