TherMos3, a tool for 3D electrothermal simulation of Smart Power Mosfets

TL;DR

TherMos3 is a Matlab-based 3D electrothermal simulation tool for Smart Power Mosfets, integrating electrical, thermal, and control logic behaviors with adaptive meshing for efficient, accurate modeling validated against real device data.

Contribution

The paper introduces TherMos3, a novel comprehensive 3D electrothermal simulation tool that incorporates control logic and adaptive meshing, enhancing accuracy and efficiency over existing methods.

Findings

Validated simulation results match experimental data.

Adaptive meshing reduces computational load.

Simulates combined electrical, thermal, and control behaviors.

Abstract

In this paper we report on a novel simulation tool designed for the 3D coupled electro-thermal simulation of Smart Power Mosfets, that is a tool capable of taking into account not only the electrical (and thermal) behaviour of the power device but also the different driving strategies as they are imposed by a control logic circuit which usually resides on the same chip. The simulator is fully developed under Matlab and solves, self consistently, the 3D heat equation with proper boundary conditions and heat sources. An adaptive meshing algorithm based on temperature gradients and an optimized time stepping strategy have also been developed to reduce computational load and speed up simulation time without loosing accuracy. To validate this approach, simulator results are finally compared to experimental data obtained on a commercial Smart Power device used in automotive applications.