An Interfacing Software Package for Thermal Analysis: Application to Microelectronics

Abstract

A software package called: INterfacing Software for Thermal ANalysis (INSTAN) is developed to interface finite element general purpose programs with finite-difference thermal network analyzers for detailed analysis of complex thermal problems. The finite element mesh is used to generate the thermal network representation of the problem. INSTAN performs automatically the thermal network calculations and generates a complete input file for the thermal analysis program. The INSTAN software package is a powerful modeling tool which uses the preprocessing and postprocessing features available in a finite element program. It has also the flexibility and heat transfer calculation capabilities of a finite-difference program. It can handle problems with three-dimensional irregular geometries, time and temperature dependent properties, and anisotropic materials. The software possesses enhanced capabilities that make it suitable for thermal analysis of microelectronic equipment.