Transient thermal simulation of power devices with Cu layer

Author

Chung, Young S.

Author_Institution

Center of Transp. Silicon Technol., Motorola Inc., Mesa, AZ, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

257

Lastpage

260

Abstract

The energy capability of power semiconductor devices is understood in terms of limitation in power density per unit area due to thermally driven failure, dealing with sub-millisecond time ranges. Analytical models are widely used to estimate the temperature changes with various power inputs and operations. This paper presents finite element method based thermal simulation results to understand the effectiveness of the copper thermal management layer integration for the energy capability improvement of power devices. Transient thermal simulations are performed to investigate various process and design parameters, such as thickness, existence of inter-dielectric materials, packaging and heat sink, operating conditions, including multi-pulse operations, and nonlinearity of the silicon thermal conductivity. The simulation data is compared to the experimental data and the mechanics of the copper layer for energy capability improvement are discussed

Keywords

copper; dielectric thin films; failure analysis; finite element analysis; heat sinks; power semiconductor devices; semiconductor device metallisation; semiconductor device packaging; thermal analysis; thermal conductivity; thermal management (packaging); Cu; Cu layer; Si; analytical models; copper layer mechanics; copper thermal management layer integration; design parameters; energy capability; finite element method based thermal simulation; heat sink; inter-dielectric materials; layer thickness; multi-pulse operations; operating conditions; packaging; power density per unit area; power devices; power input; power semiconductor devices; process parameters; silicon thermal conductivity nonlinearity; simulation; temperature change estimation; thermally driven failure; transient thermal simulation; transient thermal simulations; Analytical models; Conducting materials; Copper; Energy management; Finite element methods; Power semiconductor devices; Process design; Temperature; Thermal conductivity; Thermal management;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, 1999. ISPSD '99. Proceedings., The 11th International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Toronto, Ont.

ISSN

1063-6854

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5290-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISPSD.1999.764112

Filename

764112