How to increase power rating with the right cooling strategy

A comparison between serial and parallel cooling strategies for consecutive power semiconductor modules was demonstrated by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Two different cooling structures were taken into consideration, namely pin fin distribution and meandering channels. The analysis showed that, generally, serial configurations with optimized designs can offer superior thermal performance compared to equivalent parallel configurations due to the improved usage of the available flow rate.

In addition, the impact of temperature differences between chips on the current sharing is analyzed by means of electro-thermal simulations and infrared thermography measurements. This whitepaper explains:

• Aspects to keep in mind when designing cooling configurations for power semiconductor modules,

• the advantages of pin fin structures compared to meander structures,

• the advantages of serial configurations compared to parallel configurations,

• impact of cooling structures on chip temperature homogeneity and current share, and

• How to validate your numerical model with infrared thermography experiments.

First publication of the paper at PCIM Europe Digital Days 2021.