Who does your thermals?

30 Jul 2021

I've been spending a lot of time working on thermal design lately. I've posted several blogs about thermal design, including the redesign of the thermal solution for Ultra96-V2. We also have a heatsink being validated for another SOM platform as we speak. I'm curious to know how much responsibility you guys have for the thermal relief designs of your products. Do you have dedicated mechanical engineers that work on these solutions? Do you design them yourselves? Do you not have them until something stops working and you realize its because it melted (half kidding on that one, lol).

In all seriousness I'm working very hard towards building up a better support structure for thermal design help within Avnet. A great way for me to do that is to better understand exactly how thermal relief designs get generated by designers and customers. I know when I was working design in telecom I specified the solutions, but I worked closely with my mechanical engineering team to make sure they complied with the system design. The thermal solution lies in that unique position between product design and circuit design. I want to be able to support that as best we can.

If you have a minute, I'd love some feedback on how you or your company typically choose thermal solutions. Either respond back in the comments or send me a direct message. I'm working on some new solutions as we speak that I hope to blog about soon.

Thanks

Chris

Top Comments

dougw over 2 years ago in reply to ctammann

The group specifies and designs everything in-house, but often outsources the fabrication of extrusions or machined parts. We mostly produce mobile and wearable systems, so suitable off-the-shelf components are not usually available. We don't just cool electronics, although there is always some of that, we also do thermal management of people in extreme environments - with warming or cooling suits.
- Cancel
- Vote Up +3 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel
ctammann over 2 years ago in reply to dougw

When the mechanical group gets involved, do they also specify interface materials? Do you think it's more common for designs to go to actual thermal vendors (such as Boyd) or do you have access to "metal benders" that just make custom metal extrusions for you? Love the feedback guys, thanks again!
- Cancel
- Vote Up +1 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel
ctammann over 2 years ago in reply to wolfgangfriedrich

Thanks! Do you specify requirements for performance ICs (processors, transceivers, etc.) as well? Is it a focus on chip level solutions? If you were to design a thermal solution that spanned multiple devices (like our Ultra96 heatsink) would that be something the mechanical group would work on?
- Cancel
- Vote Up +2 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel
dougw over 2 years ago

For my designs, I do the thermal management design. (My engineering degree included several thermodynamic courses, and I have learned the rest on the job.)
At work, the mechanical engineering group gets assigned thermal design, although some of it is done by the electronics group.
- Cancel
- Vote Up +3 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel
wolfgangfriedrich over 2 years ago

Chip level thermals I do myself (as an EE), e.g. linear regulators, power transistors. If needed even up to heat sink specifications.
System level thermal usually goes to the mechanical department, they model the board after my initial calculations and the rest of the system.
- Cancel
- Vote Up +4 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel