A Review of Thermal Management in Power Converters with Thermal Vias Deepak Gautam, Dale Wager, Fariborz Musavi, Murray Edington Department of Research, Engineering Delta-Q Technologies Corp., Burnaby, BC, Canada dgautam@delta-q.com, dwager@delta-q.com, fmusavi@delta-q.com, medington@delta-q.com 1 Wilson Eberle and 2 William G. Dunford 1 School of Eng. | 2 Dept. of Electrical and Computer Eng. University of British Columbia | 1 Okanagan | 2 Vancouver 1 Kelowna, BC, Canada | 2 Vancouver, BC, Canada 1 wilson.eberle@ubc.ca | 2 wgd@ece.ubc.ca Abstract—One important challenge in power electronics design is removing the heat cost effectively from the power devices. A thermal via is a small diameter hole plated with copper and is used to transfer the heat from one side of the printed circuit board (PCB) to the other side. In this paper, a thorough literature review of the design and analysis of thermal vias in PCBs for thermal management of devices in power electronics converters are presented. Key advantages of using PCB’s for thermal management are also presented. Based on the conclusions drawn from the available literature and practical manufacturing guidelines, four different via patterns for a single power device are selected and their thermal performances are studied. Each of the four via patterns is laid out multiple times on the same PCB. A power component in a D2PAK is soldered to each of the patterns. The PCB is attached to a liquid cooled cold plate. The devices are powered up and a thermal imaging camera is used to record the temperature of the device. The experimental results presented closely matches with the theoretical prediction and helps in identifying the most efficient thermal via pattern. I. INTRODUCTION Electronic packaging is a major discipline within the field of electronic engineering, and includes a wide variety of technologies. It refers to enclosures and protective features built into products. An engineer or designer must balance many objectives and practical considerations when selecting packaging methods. For designing power electronics converters some of the most important considerations for selecting packaging methods are compliance with safety and regulatory (electromagnetic interference) standards, heat dissipation requirements, design for manufacturability and long term reliability. Design for manufacturability is the engineering art of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture and they aid in keeping the product cost low while enhancing long term reliability. Printed circuits boards (PCB) are primarily used to connect components together. With the availability of a wide variety of surface mount components (power semiconductor devices and passives), PCBs are very favorable for use in power conversion products as they ease the manufacturing process. One of the biggest challenges in using PCB’s in power converters is extracting the heat from the power semiconductor devices. Figure 1. Example of power device mounted on PCB and cooled through thermal vias and heatsink. Figure 2. Heat path from device junction to ambient through vias in PCB and heatsink. This work has been sponsored and supported by Delta-Q Technologies Corporation. 978-1-4673-4355-8/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 627