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Code: EP34

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Description
About the Authors
Table of Contents

Description

In recent times electronics engineers have become increasingly interested in the thermal aspects of design. In fact, they have no other choice. Thermal problems can no longer be solved by using a fan to inserting a more powerful fan. The two bottlenecks for further improving integration density in microelectronics (— higher frequencies) are heat removal and interconnections. What is typical then about heat transfer in electronics and, more specifically, microelectronics? First of all, the heat sources have very small dimensions. In the immediate vicinity of a transistor, heat removal by conduction is the most important. Convection cooling is only important as soon as the heat reaches the hybrid circuit or printed circuit board level. As these substances have contact with the surrounding air or another cooling fluid, convection also takes place. Small dimensions give rise to somewhat unexpectedly high values for the heat transfer coefficient. A typical feature is the temperature range between room temperature and 100-150°C. This means that radiation heat transfer cannot be the most important method as in ovens where radiation is dominant. Nevertheless, it will be pointed out that radiation can play a significant rôle in electronic cooling.

There is still continuous pressure to make circuits ever faster, so that the power per integrated circuit and the total power per package will continue to increase in the future. In this book the authors have proposed several methods for solving the heat transfer problem in microelectronics in both classical and unconventional ways. New techniques applying artificial neural networks have been introduced. The algorithms and methods outlined have been worked out for hybrid circuits. However, most of the techniques can be used for other applications also. Several methods described in the book have been used for the thermal design of monolithic GaAs circuits, printed circuit boards, VLSI circuits and even heating elements.

About the Authors

Andrzej Kos received his MSc degree in electronics at the electrical facility of the University of Mining and Metallurgy (AGH) in Krak—w in 1978. He obtained his PhD degree from the same faculty in 1983. He started his professional career at the Institute of Electronics AGH in 1978, working initially on high efficiency power amplifiers. Dr Kos was also leader of a group which designed and introduced a security system to protect large induction furnaces against failures in the iron foundry. His research has been closely related to the following topics: thermal analysis and optimisation; artificial intelligence applications — especially neural nets and expert systems; and fault diagnosis in analogue circuits. He has occasionally collaborated with international teams, being a visitor of the University of Ghent and UMIST, Manchester.

In 1995 Dr Kos obtained a DSc degree from the technical University of L—dz. He has recently worked as an Associate Professor at AGH and is a leader of the Group of Design of Microelectronics Systems. Since 1995, in co-operation with colleagues from other Polish universities, he set up the National ASIC Design Training Centre (ADEC). Dr Kos has published a number of papers and two scientific dissertations and has taken part in various international conferences on microelectronics. He is a member of IEEE, ISHM, and the New York Academy of Science.

Gilbert De Mey graduated in electronics in 1970 from the University of Ghent. After performing his military service in Germany, he obtained a degree in telecommunications engineering in 1972, and subsequently received his PhD degree with a study on modelling ion transport in dielectric layers.

After 1978 Dr De Mey started research projects on photovoltaic energy conversion and systems. In 1981 he started a new research topic on thermal problems in electronics. This work involves both theoretical and numerical simulations of temperature distributions in all kinds of electronic components. Experimental measurements are mainly carried out with infra-red thermography. In 1990, biomedical research was also started in the field of electrotherapy and electrosurgery. This research includes temperature evaluations in human tissues.

At present Dr De Mey is full-time professor at the University of Ghent with an affiliation at the department of Electronics and Information Systems. He teaches courses on heat transfer in electronics, analogue circuits and biomedical measurements. He is also a visiting professor at the Technical University of Lodz, Poland, in the international Faculty of Engineering. Currently he is head of a research team of seven collaborators including three from eastern Europe.

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