Design considerations to enhance thermal testability

With the increasing power density generated in integrated circuits, the role of thermal properties also has to be raised in the design phase. Thermal transient testing is a commonly used standard method to characterize the thermal behavior of the manufactured devices. In this paper we present the notion of DfTTT, Design for Thermal Transient Testability, an extension to the idea of “Design for Thermal Testability” to transient measurements. We define the key requirements for the thermal transient measurements and show how small changes at schematic and packaging level can increase the ease of testing and the accuracy of results. Finally we present some examples of application.