SPICE Model Extension to Simulate the Transient Coupled Electro-Thermal Behaviour for Several Power Electronic Components on System Level - Modelling Approach and Experimental Validation

For efficient engineering it can be helpful to estimate the expected transient electro-thermal coupling behavior between the components of e.g. a power PCB before manufacturing. To do this in a cost-saving manner, it is advantageous to take the electrical analogy of heat conduction, since the physical descriptions or equations are similar. This offers the possibility to use an analog circuit simulator such as LTspiceXVII. Standard SPICE models allows transient simulation only with a global temperature for all components. In order to independently simulate the local temperature-dependent behavior of arbitrary electrical circuit components, an extension of the electrical models on the one hand and transient power loss-dependent thermal models, such as Foster or Cauer networks, on the other hand are necessary. This contribution represents the extension to the existing paper “Transient Electro-Thermal Coupled System Simulation - Modeling Approach and Experimental Validation” [1].