11. Power Package Thermal and Mechanical Codesign Simulation Automation

Chapter 6 has systematically introduced the thermal management, design, and analysis methods. It is known that the thermal resistance is sensitive to package structure, package material, thermal test board, and ambient conditions. In this chapter, the thermal modeling and simulation and the correlation with test for a regular power chip and a wafer level chip scale power package are presented first. To reduce the design cycle time and solve the thermal and mechanical problems efficiently, a customized tool for power package codesign simulation automation called Automation Simulation System (AutoSim) is developed through finite element software ANSYS^® Workbench. With the codesign simulation automation tool, it is easy for users to input necessary data in a friendly and intuitive wizard interface. The whole simulation (including meshing, loading/boundary condition, solving, postprocess, and final report) will be completed automatically and efficiently. This chapter introduces the general methodology of the codesign simulation automation for the IC package.