Simulation of Electrothermal Transient Responses in Power PCB Modules Using Comsol, Spice, and Asonika-TM

Russian Microelectronics. 2025. Vol. 54. No. 7. P. 743–750.

K. O. Petrosyants, I. A. Kharitonov, Tegin M. S.

Large temperature jumps in the structures of power semiconductor devices when they are turned
on and off significantly reduce the reliability of power circuits. The widely used electrothermal modeling
approaches for thermal circuits have a number of disadvantages: the use of interconnected Spice simulators
and the numerical 3D thermal field modeling tool requires a detailed description of 3D structures and signif-
icant computer time; the use of only Spice-like simulators of electrical circuits for mixed electrothermal mod-
eling requires the creation of electrothermal models of power components and significant CPU time costs
due to the large difference in the time constants of the electrical and thermal parts. In this study, an improved
scheme of multilevel automated electrothermal modeling and simulation of power electronic components
using the Comsol software at the semiconductor device level, Spice simulation at the circuit level, and the
Asonika-TM system at the printed circuit board (PCB) level is proposed and implemented. The developed
additional software tools for the implementation of the proposed route are described, providing automation
of the power calculation processes of components of power circuits, transferring the obtained values to a ther-
mal simulation tool, and forming electrothermal models of the circuit components. The correctness of the
proposed modeling scheme is confirmed by the results of thermal-imaging analysis using an IR camera. The
effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through the example of a real PCB design with
high-power MOSFETs for controlling a power stepper motor. In the analyzed circuit, a possible thermal fail-
ure of the output DMOSFETs due to their overheating is revealed. To improve the conditions for reducing
their temperature, it is proposed to use a larger electrode radiator with lower thermal resistance.

Keywords: PCB, power MOSFET, печатная плата, тепловизионный анализ, Электро-тепловое моделирование, IR, power component, electrothermal modeling, мощный компонент, мощный МОПТ

Publication based on the results of: Methods and tools for the development and implementation of digital twins for electronic engineering (2025)