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Much of the information in this page has been kindly supplied by Wakefield Engineering Inc, a
supplier of all sorts of heatsinks. Click on their logo to visit their site.
If you are designing you own speed controller (see Speed Controllers), then the MOSFETs you use
will need to be heatsinked so they don’t overheat. Which heatsink should you use? How big a
heatsink will you need? This page attempts to help you to answer these and more questions.
1.Basic Theory
A common rule of thumb (although not exactly accurate - see rule 9 here) is that every 10ºC
reduction in the junction temperature of a semiconductor will double the life expectancy of that
semiconductor – clearly then it is in our interest to keep the junction as cool as is practical and in
order to achieve this we must consider three factors:
The sum of the thermal resistances between the junction and the ambient air (see diagram
below)
The amount of heat to be dissipated
The ambient air temperature
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Equivalent schematic
Where
Notes:
θjc is a function of the semiconductor design and is a fixed number (see manufacturer’s
data). It cannot be influenced by the addition of a heatsink or any external agent.
θcs can be minimised by the application of silicon grease on the semiconductor mounting
surface area.
θsa is the most important and most controllable parameter. The aim is to reduce this to the
smallest possible level that is both economical and practical.
θsa is a function of the convection coefficient (hc) and the heatsink surface area (A), and can be
expressed by the formula
Clearly the greater the heatsink surface area or convection coefficient then the smaller will be θsa.
Surface area (A) can be increased either by improved heatsink design or moving to a larger
version of the same heatsink.
The convection coefficient (hc) can be improved by moving from natural convection to forced
convection (air or liquid).
2. Operating conditions
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Under operating conditions (natural and forced convection) the permissible power dissipation (Q)
for a semiconductor/heatsink assembly is defined by the formula
In most applications the only unknown will beθsa. Therefore re-arranging equation 2 in favour of θsa
gives
Example
Assume a semiconductor (TO3 case) has a maximum operating junction temperature of 125ºC at
10W dissipation, in an ambient air temperature of 50ºC. θjc is given as 1.5ºC/W (manufacturer’s
data) and θcs is estimated at 0.09ºC/W using thermal heatsink compound. Find the maximum θsa
under these conditions:
θsa = 5.9ºC/W
This is the largest value of θsa that can be tolerated. Clearly smaller values would be acceptable as
these would result in a lower junction temperature.
However, a shortcut would be to use Graph 1 below. It illustrates the volume of heatsink required
over a range of thermal resistances for natural convection. It is not exact, as it represents the
average data from many profiles, but can be relied upon to a first approximation. The volume of a
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heatsink is the outline envelope times the length of the heatsink:
Graph 1
Typically, to reduce thermal resistance by 50% the heatsink volume must be quadrupled. This
assumes all other parameters remain constant.
Having established a figure for the volume and presumably knowing the maximum available width
and height, we can calculate the length. Alternatively, fixing any two parameters allows us to
determine the third. Armed with this information, and providing it is acceptable, we can now look
for a suitable heatsink profile. Clearly, under natural convection conditions and assuming no other
variables, the heatsink volume must be increased to reduce θsa.
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Graph 2
The engineering data supporting the curves is based on air movements in the laminar region
(frontal velocities of 120 to 240 metres per minute) and will provide good approximations of
thermal performance. As with natural convection, it is assumed that device quantity and location
add no unusual heat distribution effects. Note that the outlet air temperature from the extrusion is
going to be higher than at the inlet, and it is imperative that this outlet temperature never exceeds
the desired maximum surface temperature of the heatsink. In fact it should remain as far below as
is practical.
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where
The 0.83 constant is based on a 25ºC ambient air temperature. For ambient air temperatures above 25ºC,
multiply ΔT by the following correction factors:
Air temperature ºC Correction factor
30 1.02
40 1.06
50 1.09
60 1.12
For more information about fans, how they work, and selecting one, have a look at
http://www.electronics-cooling.com/Resources/EC_Articles/MAY96/may96_01.htm.
Consider the following examples in the use of the forced convection selector guide:
From the datasheet we see that the heat dissipating surface (HDS) is 58.17 cm2/cm. Therefore
the total HDS for a 15cm length is 15 x 58.17 = 873cm2.
Locate 873 on the horizontal axis of the graph above, and move vertically to intersect the 15cm
length curve and then move horizontally to intersect the vertical axis at 0.65ºC/W. This is the θsa for
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this example. Now let us apply some operating conditions to check for functional effectiveness.
Question:
Will the heatsink temperature at the air outlet remain below 130ºC under the following conditions:
Solution:
This suggests that the performance will stay within acceptable limits.
To visualise this more clearly it is useful to show these temperature profiles as follows:
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Again, consider the use of Wakefield 1371 extrusion, and assuming a design goal of θsa =
0.3ºC/W.
Because of variables associated with the length of heatsinks, we will average the information from
the curve of each of the four lengths.
Locate 0.3ºC/W on the vertical axis of the graph and move horizontally right to intersect the curves
and read vertically down, recording the HDS for each length:
The HDS of Wakefield 1371 extrusion is 58.17cm2/cm and the required length can be determined
by simple division:
= 2150/58.17 = 40cm.
Clearly any greater length would be acceptable. For intermediate lengths it would be reasonable to
extrapolate the required values.
4. Hot tips
Typical values are as follows, depending on the mounting medium between the semiconductor
device and the heatsink:
Mounting medium Typical θcs range, ºC/W
Wakefield thermal
0.1 – 0.2
compound
Wakefield "delta
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An excellent article about different thermal compounds that can be used to improve θcs can be
found at http://www.electronics-cooling.com/Resources/EC_Articles/MAY97/article3.htm.
In order to achieve a balanced temperature rise along the heatsink (assuming there is an equal
load sharing among transistors) the following mounting arrangements are recommended:
4.3. Extrusion fin design – forced air application .v. natural convection
When extruded heatsinks are used in forced air applications, the fin spacing can be considerably
closer than for natural convection, due to the reduction in the boundary (or blanket) layer of air
surrounding the fins.
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For lengths in the range 4cm to 30cm, the thermal resistance is inversely proportional to the square
root of the length (and therefore volume):
where K is constant for the material. Therefore to keep thermal resistance low, conduction paths
should be short and have a large cross-sectional area.
Any finned shape will have a lower thermal resistance in forced convection than in natural
convection, on account of the higher heat transfer rate. Therefore under these conditions choose a
heatsink with thicker sections.
Thermal data produced by manufacturers generally relates to the most efficient mounting
arrangement, with the fins vertical. The following is a guide to the reduction in performance that can
be expected for different mounting attitudes.
However, it is stressed that the performance of a heatsink is dependant on many variables such as
location in the equipment, effective airflow, fin spacing, fin height, fin thickness, base thickness,
shape, and overall length. Consequently the impact on the performance of a heatsink mounted
other than vertically is not a fixed number, and may depend on the inter-relationship between two or
more of these variables.
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4.7. Specifications
Thermal efficiency improves (and therefore thermal resistance, θsa, reduces) with increased
dissipation. Beware of data providing only one figure for θsa. It is probably the best figure at
maximum dissipation. At low dissipation, θsa would typically increase by 50%, or worst case
100%.
Under natural convection conditions, the performance of a heatsink with a black surface will be 6%
to 8% better than that with a plain or bright surface. However, this differential disappears under
forced air conditions.
In general, they are not very efficient, taking large amounts of power. For more information on the
Peltier effect, devices, and manufacturers, see http://www.peltier-info.com/
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Here are links to some interesting articles from Electronics Cooling Magazine:
An excellent practical article on what to put between the component case and the heatsink.
An article about interface resistance between the package and the heatsink. A little mathematical, but does show
what happens when silicone grease is used, and the effect of contact pressure.
An article about forced convection cooling in enclosures. Quite mathematical, but some good hints.
A very mathematical article about finding how much air flows past a heatsink without contributing to reducing the
temperature. There's a table at the end with the results though, so you can ignore the maths at the top.
A fairly simple short article on one dimensional heat flow past a heatsink.
International rectifier have a few datasheets on mounting their MOSFETs, some are in Acrobat
PDF format:
Thermal resistance - theory and practice. A very good booklet with practical information.
An article on modelling thermal circuits with SPICE and SABER circuit simulators - if you're into that sort of thing!
Other sites:
Flomerics produce various thermal simulation software packages, demos are available too.
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