provides software tools, thermal test chips and other measuring tools and services related to thermal problems of integrated circuits, multi-chip modules and printed circuit boards.   MicRed provides a wide spectrum of complete solutions for treating thermal problems in microelectronics, electronics design.  These include software tools & measurement tools including thermal test chips.

T3Ster - the Thermal Transient Tester

Thermodel - Thermal Modeling Tool

Software Tools
 
Main system unit with 8 measuring channels

 

ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, VERSATILITY
*  Scalable equipment, hardware and software add-on options
*  Fixtures for special measurements such as thermal interface material (TIM) or characterization, effective board thermal conductivity measurement
*  JEDEC compliant thermal resistance measurements and dynamic characterization Heat-flow path details
*  Heat-flow path details
*  Measurement control even from your notebook computer
*  Continuous development, solid scientific background & consulting services

T3Ster - the Thermal Transient Tester

MicReD has developed a new thermal transient tester, which is a state-of-the-art version of a successful design of the thermal transient tester developed at TUB within the framework of the THERMINIC project of the EU. T3Ster® (say: tri-ster) provides an excellent price/performance ratio on the market. Due to its modular architecture this tester is scalable, requiring the necessary investment only. With the unique thermal transient evaluation technology of MicReD's THERMODEL program T3Ster® is the best value on the market.

 

APPLICATIONS INCLUDE

HEAT-FLOW PATH RECONSTRUCTION
DIE ATTACH QUALIFICATION
TESTING OF STACKED DIE PACKAGES
THERMAL STUDY OF HIGH POWER LED-s
THERMAL TESTING OF THYRISTORS
PARTIAL THERMAL RESISTANCE MEASUREMENTS
IN-SITU MEASUREMENT OF LIVE IC-s

Based on transients measured by T3Ster® SPICE models of the heat-conduction path can be generated using the THERMODEL program.

 
Main specifications of the equipment are as follows:
  • Suited for four different test chip structures:
      1. MOS transistor
      2. bipolar transistor,
      3. diode,
      4. dedicated test chip with a resistor as heater & with a diode as temperature sensor

  • Maximal power to switch:
      1. UCB=10 V, IE=2 A results in 20 W
      2. Udiode@1 V, I=2 A results in ~2 W (with booster up to 100 W)
      3. Umax=50 V, Imax=2 A results in 100 W (with booster up to 1000 W)
  • Temperature measurement:

    1. With diode: U range = 400mV/200mV/100mV/50mV. The 100 mV corresponds to about 50 Celsius. Resolution: 12 bit, in the 100 mV range it results in an LSB of about 25 micro Volts, corresponding to ~12-15 mCelsius. Noise: 1 bit (prior to software filtering)

    2. With thermo-element (needs an extra pre-amplifier as an add-on option): LSB corresponds to 25 mCelsius

  • Number of measuring channels: The number of identical channels for simultaneous measurement is 8. Equipment with less channels can also be ordered. On the parallel channels measurement and data acquisition takes place simultaneously.

  • Sampling rate: Measurement takes place with a quasi-logarithmic variable sampling rate, controlled by the measurement software. The hardware supports individual programming of sampling intervals between 1 micro sec and 16 sec.

  • Calibration: A thermostat with Peltier-element (an add-on option) is provided for the calibration of the measuring diode enabling an automated recording of the calibration diagram of the diode.

 
Thermostat for calibration

  • Evaluation of the results: The T3Ster Main System Unit is controlled by a dedicated software that also contains a results evaluation module based on the NID method. The results (besides the raw thermal transient responses) include time-constant spectra, pulse thermal impedance curves, complex loci of the measured transient responses, structure functions, etc.
Typical applications include:
  • measuring heating curves & pulse thermal impedance diagrams,
  • die attach qualification,
  • measuring Rthja and identification of partial thermal resistances thereof,
  • measuring interface thermal resistances.

THERMODEL is a software tool, providing fast and accurate compact model generation, based on dynamic thermal responses, which are either measured or simulated. The method applied in these tools is known as Network Identification by Deconvolution (NID) in the scientific literature. THERMODEL uses time-domain (transient) functions as input. It is capable to identify thermal structures from their time-domain response functions. The program automatically provides the compact dynamic thermal model of the investigated structure in form of a SPICE netlist and the thermal heat-flow map or structure function.

As a complementary tool, THERMODEL is directly interfaced to the measurement control and evaluation program of our T3Ster® - the Thermal Transient Tester equipment. Starting from version 2.2 THERMODEL can import AnaTech Phase 10 thermal analyzer or TEA TTS series thermal test system thermal impedance curves.

Software tools

MicReD provides various program tools, such as different thermal simulation programs and tools for generating compact thermal RC models of a given thermal structure. The software tools provided by MicReD are available one-by-one or in packages. The complete package we offer is the MicReD Thermal Simulation Tool-Set. Our individual programs are the following:

  • THERMAN: THERMal ANalysis tool for IC-s, MEMS structures, MCM-s and PWB-s with co-simulation option of dynamic compact RC models of IC packages in v2.0
  • SUNRED: 2D and 3D field solver based on SUccessive Network REDuction for thermal and electrostatic problems,
  • THERMODEL: THERmal MODEL generator tools, using time-domain dynamic response functions. Directly available from-within the T3Ster-software, import option of AnaTech Phase 10 thermal analyzer and TEA TTS series measurement results.