There are two golden rules to thermal design: start simple and start early. The heat-flow path from the junction to the ambient, usually air in the local environment, determines a component’s ...

It’s costly and time-consuming to determine the causes of hotspots on circuit boards, and to attempt to arrive at a “well-tempered” board through multiple iterations once a prototype is approved. A ...

In a previous article, “A Close Look at Facts and Myths About Thermal Vias,” we used a thermal simulation model called Thermal Risk Management, or TRM, to model thermal vias. Thermal vias, almost by ...