Experimental validation of an electro-thermal simulator for metal interconnections in single-layer PCB

The present paper deals with the experimental validation of an electro-thermal simulator which is able to foresee the electrical and thermal parameters of any shaped metal interconnection driven by constant voltage or constant current in single-layer PCB. The algorithm inside the simulator has been improved to adapt to the actual experiment condition, especially adding in the thermal radiation contribution. Furthermore, recursive calculation of average proportion of thermal radiation power in the electric heating power under thermal-steady state was led in the algorithm to examine the consistency between the total dissipating power and the electric heating power. A thermal camera was used to measure the temperature distribution on the top surface of the board. However, since there are additional slim carbon layers on the surfaces of the board to obtain high thermal radiation emissivity, the simulation accuracy of the voltage across the interconnection is lower and the temperature distribution is partially consistent with the experimental results under higher currents.