Effective thermal design and management

The packing density of components on printed circuit boards (PCB´s) has increased dramatically recently and thermal constraints have become increasingly more important. Computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided engineering (CAE) tool vendors have been able to incorporate new tools to address the bottlenecks in the design process. Areas that have been addressed include circuit simulation and PCB placement and routing. However, with the increase in the awareness and importance of the thermal aspects of designs, the tool vendors have started to address thermal analysis and `integrate´ it into the design process. The advantages of these `new wave´ analysis tools and their effects on the design process are discussed