Thermal analysis of air-cooled electronic units with integrated offset strip-fin heat sink

This short communication addresses a numerical investigation of the thermal behavior of an electronic unit. The unit consists of several parallel planes and on the top and bottom planes heat is generated by a number of electronic chips. The heat is transported by conduction through plastic and copper-invar layers. Finally, the heat is rejected by a forced air stream in the center of the unit. The channel system for the cooling air is designed as an offset strip fin surface. A three-dimensional numerical method based on a thermal resistance or conductance network has been developed. The grid points on the cooling air side are staggered compared to the grid points in the solid materials. Details of the numerical method as well as some temperature distributions on the chip planes are provided.