Application of RC Equivalent Networks to Modelling of Nonlinear Thermal Phenomena

The main goal of this paper is to present an extension of a numerical solver dedicated to thermal simulation of electronic structures. This solver implements the finite difference method and employs the RC equivalent network approach. The hereby-proposed extension renders possible thermal simulation taking into account non-linear cases when material thermal properties and heat transfer coefficient values depend on temperature. For this purpose, the standard equivalent RC circuit method has been significantly modified. All the required modifications are presented in this paper in detail. Additionally, the differences between the results obtained with both the linear and non-linear simulators have been compared and discussed based on the examples of selected test structures.