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Upgrade for thermal modelling software

A Mentor Graphics Mechanical Analysis Division product story
Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jun 17, 2004

Version 5 of the Flotherm thermal management simulation package claims substantial improvements in the areas of usability, CAD import, compact modelling and numerical stability.

Version 5 of the Flotherm thermal management simulation package claims substantial improvements in the areas of usability, CAD import, compact modelling and numerical stability.

Flotherm has become the standard tool for design and optimisation of cooling systems for electronics equipment with a user base twice that of all competitors combined.

The menus have been redesigned in the new release to more intuitively guide the user through the modelling process.

Analysis accuracy has been improved with a grid-based dissection CAD import method that provides better handling of complex product geometries.

The new release supports emerging JEDEC guidelines on best practice for the creation of thermal compact component models.

Numerical stability has been increased by refining Flotherm's unique object-based localised gridding.

Usability has been improved by redesigning the top-level menu system so that it is more consistent with design-based project creation.

The node tree has been simplified and focuses on a hierarchical view of the project geometry.

The file menu now lists the most recently opened files so they can be quickly re-opened.

Menu picks that provide importing and exporting of projects and assemblies have been repositioned on the file menu for easier access.

There have also been significant performance improvements in accessing the data associated with very large projects, particularly when this is required in a tabular form.

The new version also improves the handling of complex geometries by providing an option to discretise imported solid models using a grid that reproduces the model's shape to a high level of accuracy, while maintaining numerical efficiency and avoiding any issues relating to the quality and accuracy of the imported CAD data.

In order to address an increasing interest in transient analysis, a new feature has been introduced that allows for the import of a comma delimited ASCII file defining any desired power versus time profile.

Flotherm Version5 has a number of new features to support the emerging JEDEC standard aimed at creating a uniform method of characterising IC packages in compact models for cooling simulation.

Semiconductor manufacturers and systems designers create compact models by entering data describing the IC package such as number of balls, substrate conductivity, die size etc.

These parameters are then used by Flomerics' Flopack software to generate a compact SmartPart model that can be downloaded to the user's local machine and used in a design project in Flotherm.

The localised gridding capabilities in the new version have been refined to improve their stability and broaden applicability.

The grid is associated with objects so that the grid is constructed as the user adds objects, such as SmartParts compact models, rather than after the fact.

Another new feature improves flexibility by allowing objects in contact to be localised individually rather than with all the localised components grouped together.

Flotherm software from Flomerics reduces the time and skill required to simulate complicated electronics cooling problems, because it is specially designed for electronic cooling applications.

Flotherm provides tools that allow users to assemble models from libraries, avoiding the need to create them from scratch.

It provides an abundant supply of thermal model libraries for existing components.

Flotherm provides an environment that enables fast, automated design studies.

Automated gridding and distributed processing across networks streamlines the process of evaluating multiple iterations to optimise the design.

In conjunction with other Flomerics products, Flotherm makes it possible to address other interrelated performance issues such as electromagnetic compatibility, reliability and stress in a concurrent fashion.

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