PCB/Electronics: Thermal Management, Cooling and Derating
What you'll learn
- Design a PCB/electronic application using comprehensive approach to thermal management, cooling and component derating for reliability.
- Know what heatsinks are, their most important aspects and how to choose them for a proper thermal management and cooling.
- Undersand and choose heat sink mounting techniques and thermal interface materials.
- Understand the use of fans in thermal management and cooling, their impact on heat sinks thermal resistance and parameters.
- Master thermal aspects with respect to PCB routing and design (copper plane, vias and similar) and parameters influencing it.
- Understand re-rating and de-rating of electronics components (derating power, voltage, currents, fan out, and so on).
- Master the reliability aspects of thermal management, cooling and derating, especially with respect to electrical and thermal stress factors.
- Analyse, calculate, and design the hardware thermal control of a PCB.
- Cool components in PCB design using a proper approach.
- Understand the most used cooling techniques and all the parameters influencing it.
Requirements
- Knowledge of the basic electronic concepts, like current, voltage, power and Ohm's law.
- Knowledge of common electronic components (transistors, capacitors, and other devices of widespread use) and basic PCB concepts.
Description
This course is about cooling, thermal management and derating in PCB design.
After introducing the basic definitions, it provides a clear and logical path to a complete design of thermal aspects.
- It starts with calculating the dissipated power for different types of components, and understanding whether the thermal equilibrium is optimal or we need a thermal management strategy.
- Then it introduces heat sinks, which is by far the most used cooling approach, talking about their features, mounting techniques, parameters and so on.
- Than it speaks about thermal interface materials, used to couple heat sinks to integrated circuits, their types and characteristics.
- It also speaks about the forced air cooling technique, introducing how to calculate a fan performance and its impact on the heat sink thermal resistance.
- Then it explains PCB related aspects for thermal management, of particular relevance when the used devices have exposed pads.
At the end of these group of lessons, you will be able to understand the need for thermal management and provide your design with a comprehensive strategy mastering all the related aspects and variables influencing it (like altitude, spreading resistance, etc. )
Then the course dedicate an entire section to a related and very important aspect: derating.
It explain the concept of re-rating and de-rating, its impact on electronic devices reliability and expected life (MTBF, Mean Time Between Failure, nowadays often used instead of MTTF, Mean Time To Failure), and it shows how the most used electronic components are derated and which parameters are reduced.
The course is enriched with exercises and real life examples, using real devices datasheets to show where parameters are gathered and how they are used.
At the end of the course you will have a broader understanding of the thermal/cooling management and derating aspects, and you will able to design a PCB that is able to manage the dissipated power (and related temperature rise), and properly choose components parameters based on the right derating considerations.
Therefore, you will be able to design a PCB that stands thermal and electrical stresses and that actually works and last in the real world environment.
Who this course is for:
- Students interested in electronics, embedded systems and PCB design.
- Students who want to understande the most important cooling techniques and basics.
- Students who are interested in electronics reliability against thermal and electrinic stress.
- Persons interested in derating and its impact in enhancing a device expected life.
Instructor
![Marco CATANOSSI](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.3 Instructor Rating
- 6,874 Reviews
- 23,579 Students
- 7 Courses
Marco Catanossi lives and works in Italy.
He has a MSc in electronics engineering, is a Certified professional in Engineering, and he is an expert in product legislation, international standards and certifications, helping many companies from different countries to successfully put their product on the market and reach safety and quality goals.
The Author has also experience as assessors on product legislation and international standards on behalf of the Court of Justice and he is member of the European Union engineering panel for innovation projects evaluation.
Since 2008, Marco has built a consulting business helping manufacturers from different fields (from medical devices to machinery and toys) to meet regulatory and technical requirements worldwide, and to certify their organization according to management standards, like ISO 9001 and ISO 13485.
He is a dedicated professional with a high specialization in products legislation (including electrical/electronics) and certifications (both for quality like ISO 9001 and for products like IEC 60601, IEC 60335, etc.), a deep insight in product liability and a strong practical approach to product engineering and design.