This article discusses some of the key issues in dealing with thermal derating and thermal management of board mounted power units (BMPs).
There is an insatiable demand in the marketplace for higher power density BMP units. Satisfying this demand means more watts have to be extracted from the same, if not smaller, volumes. This results in higher levels of heat generated within a given package size that must somehow be dissipated. There is also a push for higher MTTF (mean time to failure) numbers for these units. MTTF is inversely important to the operating temperature of electronic components, so thermal management in terms of airflow required to keep temperatures within specified ranges has become increasingly more important...
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