Development and application of test chips and test systems for the thermal characteristics of IC packaging technologies

The authors report on the development and application of test chips and computerized test systems for the steady state and transient thermal characterization of IC packaging technologies. The steady state test system is discussed in terms of the temperature sensor calibration algorithm and the error budget associated with junction-to-case thermal resistance measurements in an oven environment. Accuracy and repeatability figures of ±18% and ±4% respectively have been obtained for an oven-based junction-to-case thermal resistance test method. By a comparison with infrared thermal imaging, the use of the average junction temperature is shown to provide an accurate thermal resistance figure for conventional IC package structures