Simcenter Flotherm

Simcenter Flotherm Software

Improve electronics thermal management for reliability with fast, accurate electronics cooling CFD simulation from initial pre-CAD exploration to final verification. 

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  • Predicts airflow and heat transfer, in and around electronic equipment
  • Delivers right-by-design products that save design time
  • Reduces the need for physical prototyping from components and boards to complete systems and data centers

Ten tips for streamlining PCB thermal design

Engineers often rely on manual strategies to address thermal concerns, employing rules of thumb or excessive cooling measures just to be safe. These approaches, while offering some semblance of control, lacked the sophistication needed to handle modern board complexities. Placing components at safe distances or relying on pyramid models to estimate thermal thresholds were common practices but could mask underlying issues.

The landscape of PCB design has undergone a shift, with escalating power requirements, high-density designs, and stringent performance demands becoming the norm. The inadequacy of traditional thermal methodologies to accommodate these demands is becoming increasingly apparent. Placing components farther apart to mitigate thermal issues inadvertently compromises the speed and connectivity between vital components, creating a problem that necessitates a more nuanced approach. 

Download this white paper for a deeper dive into this topic.

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Why Simcenter Flotherm?

With more than 34 years of development and user feedback, Simcenter Flotherm is the leading electronic cooling simulation software solution for electronics thermal analysis. It shortens development at IC package, PCB and enclosure level through to large systems such as datacenters.

Accelerate electronics thermal design workflow
Simcenter Flotherm integrates with the electronics development workflow as a tool for thermal engineers to perform simulation and provide timely accurate results and feedback to other engineering functions. It supports thermal management, simulation-based decision making from early-stage architecture to final thermal design verification. This aids shortened development, and also helps to eliminate risks of costly reliability-related warranty costs or any late-stage re-spins.  

Example capabilities that help engineers shorten the thermal analysis process include: innovative SmartPart technology, extensive libraries, EDA and MCAD data handling, a tailored and stable solver technology, state-of-the art compact thermal modeling techniques, automatic model calibration through to parametric analysis and optimization functionality.

Leverage accurate, fast thermal analysis
Leverage the Simcenter Flotherm instantaneous and reliable cartesian gridding that suits large complex electronics models with 1000’s of components, materials and powers. Simcenter Flotherm meshing and solver was designed from the outset to handle different length scales from sub-micron to meters. Furthermore, intelligent SmartPart based, object associated gridding eliminates the need for re-gridding as locations and orientations of objects are changed. This enables you to go faster and stay focused on simulation results and design space exploration.

Reduce model creation time with intelligent SmartParts
Use the Simcenter Flotherm thermal engineering-oriented interface, intelligent modeling and libraries to quickly construct models for fast, accurate studies to support early thermal architecture decision making. Build models quickly using SmartParts libraries of electronics specific components such as heatsinks, fans, enclosures, heat pipes and more.

Incorporate EDA and mechanical design data complexity during development
Enhance your model complexity and fidelity as EDA and mechanical design teams progress during development. You can import and pre-process CAD data. Handle EDA complexity by bringing in ECAD data for board routing and component layout information and modeling from all major EDA software file formats like ODB++ in a straightforward manner. Use the EDA Bridge for quick processing and options for appropriate modeling fidelity levels.

Cheaper, Faster, Better: Why Simulation-driven design is essential for electronic engineering

We talk a lot about the importance of simulation-driven design in the modern world. But why is it so important?

Because it enables products to be made cheaper, faster, and better. And that's not all. However, let's focus on those benefits as they have the most immediate and obivous impact. 

Check out this blog by John Parry if you want to find out more on why simulation-driven design is essential for electronic design. 

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What's new?

Find out about the latest release, including temperature export to Simcenter 3D for thermo-mechanical analysis workflows, microsecond timescale transient analysis, a new separate enhanced visualization window to aid complex model construction and modification, and much more.

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Ten tips for streamlining PCB thermal design

Enable mechanical engineers to share input earlier in the design process to increase thermal performance and prevent costly changes later. 

See thermal issues earlier in the PCB design process.

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Technical specifications

Simcenter Flotherm uses advanced CFD techniques to predict airflow, temperature, and heat transfer in components, boards, and complete systems including racks and data centers.

It features the industry's best solution for integration with MCAD and EDA software.

technical specifications

Transient thermal analysis

Simcenter Flotherm supports accurate transient analysis for electronics devices and products. It is able to model transient events at even sub microsecond timescales. You can model a variety of different transient behaviors such as time dependent power dissipation in components and transient thermostatic control modeling where model input is varied as a function of monitored temperature. These capabilities support modeling of power cycles for power electronics applications, consumer device operating power mode transitions, fan control cooling and to evaluate power derating and thermal mitigation strategies.

Robust meshing and fast solver

Leverage the Simcenter Flotherm instantaneous and reliable gridding that is easy to use so you focus on thermal design. The robust structured-Cartesian method is stable and numerically efficient for meshing of typical electronics. It is further tailored for fast grid generation and minimized solution time by localized grid controls for finer resolution where needed. The value in SmartPart based, or object associated, grid generation is that it automatically updates instantly, eliminating the need for full re-gridding when geometry is changed for orientation or position over successive studies.

BCI-ROM Technology

Boundary Condition Independent Reduced Order Model (BCI-ROM) technology offers advantages for fast transient thermal analysis of electronics orders of magnitude faster than full 3D CFD while preserving accuracy. Simcenter Flotherm has the capability to extract a BCI-ROM based on a conduction analysis which maintains predictive accuracy but solves up to 40,000+ times faster in demonstrated cases. The “boundary condition independent” aspect of reduced order models is extremely valuable, as this enables BCI-ROMs to be used in any thermal environment, while maintaining accuracy. BCI-ROMs can be exported in several formats: as a matrix to be solved by tools such as Mathworks Matlab Simulink, in VHDL-AMS format for use in circuit simulation tools like Siemens EDA PartQuest and Xpedition AMS to support electrothermal analysis, or in FMU (functional mockup unit) format for use in system thermal modeling in 1D tools such as Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter Flomaster that support FMI capabilities.

A complete guide to enclosure thermal design

Designing an enclosure to ensure heat is dissipated efficiently away from electronics to the surroundings is important to keep components within suitable temperatures to ensure product performance and reliability. 

Learn how to improve enclosure design in this guide covering 14 considerations on thermal management best practices, from cooling options and selection through to design considerations. Examples are presented using CFD simulation results to illustrate the need to understand airflow and heat transfer within electronics enclosures. 

Topics:

  • Early architecture to detailed design - assessing cooling options and performance
  • Best practices for passive cooling, forced convection fan cooling through to sealed systems
  • Fan selection, venting, use of plenums, phase change materials & more
  • Transient modeling to evaluate thermal controls

Download White paper
Complete guide to enclosure thermal design - 14 key considerations
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