Electrothermal Mechanical Stress Reference Design Flow for Printed Circuit Boards and Electronic Packages

This paper presents a reference design flow for solving the electrical, thermal and mechanical challenges of a printed circuit board (PCB) using simulation tools from ANSYS. This approach can be utilized for all electrical CAD (ECAD) types such as IC packages, touch panel displays, and glass and silicon interposers. The authors followed this reference design flow for analyzing a PCB virtual prototype used in the consumer electronics industry. The design flow details nearly all aspects of the modeling technique from studying electrical connections in a schematic and setting up the PCB to analyzing the electrical, thermal and mechanical characteristics of the board — all using ANSYS tools. The multiphysics simulation yields power losses across the entire board and its objects, determines whether the integrated circuit (IC) and overall board temperatures lie within safe operating limits and predicts overall PCB reliability, taking into account all its components and heat sinks.