Tutorial of Ansys Icepak

-Yu Yan
Outline
• Icepak Introduction

• Preliminary Settings

• Elements Drawing

• Simulation Setup

• Simulation Result

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Icepak Introduction

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 •1. What is Icepak?

Ansys Icepak provides electronic cooling solutions which

Icepak utilize Ansys Fluent computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
solver for thermal and fluid flow analyses of integrated
Introduction circuits (ICs), packages, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and
electronic assemblies.

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 2. What Icepak can do?
(a) Thermal simulation (b) Fluid flow simulation

Icepak Example:
Introduction •• flow in computer cabinets
•• analysis of chip- and board-level packages
•• heat sink analysis

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 3. What is relationship between Icepak and Q3D?

Icepak Both are integrated within Ansys Electronics Desktop.

Introduction Q3D and Icapak can share the same 3D model, which the
model built up in Q3D can directly copy to Icepak.

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Preliminary Settings

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Preliminary Settings ―Solution Type
Icepak / Solution Type

Steady state simulation can be used to estimate

the thermal performance of the designed
package, for example, the calculation of the
thermal impedance from junction to case or
heatsink.

Transient simulation is finding the performance

within a certain time scale based on the defined
initial conditions.

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Preliminary Settings ―Ambient Temperature
Icepak / Design Settings / Ambient Temperature

Ambient temperature should be defined

based on the application requirement.

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Elements Drawing

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 Elements Drawing ―Coordinate System1
Adjust coordinate system can make drawing easier when drawing multiple-layer objects.

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 Elements Drawing ―Coordinate System2
When you are drawing anything, push ‘TAB’ to switch to the orientation system,
which can help to set the start point, the end point or the thickness.

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 Elements Drawing ―Trimming
When you want to keep any object embedded in another object, keep in mind
subtract the embedded objected object from the environment.

For example, to put all the dies and

DBC in silicon, all the objects should
be selected, and click subtract.

Silicon

Dies and DBC

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Elements Drawing ―Region

An environment region should be

created to cover all objects.

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 Elements Drawing ―Heatsink
3D Components / Create / Heatsink

Insert the heatsink properties you designed

to create the same heatsink object in Icepak.

Or just draw a box as a simplified heatsink.

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Elements Drawing ―Fan1
3D Components / Create / Fan

Define the geometry of the fan and insert the

fan performance curve from the datasheet.

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Elements Drawing ―Fan2
Selected Object (Region) / Assign Thermal / Opening

Directly define the velocity in the region to

create the flow.
Both faces across the flow direction should
be defined as opening (for example +1 ,-1
alone Y axis).

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Simulation Setup

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Simulation Setup ―Material

Assign material for each object from the library, or add

the material by yourself.

Most of the information can be get through the

Internet or manufactures.

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Simulation Setup ―Thermal Assignment

Thermal block should be defined based on the estimated loss.

In package design, this thermal block should be the dies.

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Simulation Setup ―Mesh Region1

The global mesh should be defined before simulation to decide how fine
each element can be in the simulation model.

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 Simulation Setup ―Mesh Region2

To make the simulation more accurate, a non-

model box can be created surrounding the
important objects (for example, dies and DBC).

Redefine the mesh operation of the box.

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Simulation Setup ―Analysis Setup
Laminar flow occurs when a fluid flows in
parallel layers (pipes or tube), without
disruption between the layers.

Turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized

by chaotic property changes.

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Simulation Setup ―Analyze All

When everything is set up, validate the simulation model

at first to check if there is any error.

Then it is good to analyze the model.

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Simulation Result

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Simulation Result ―Plot Fields1

The objects and the faces can be selected to check the thermal
distribution.

The rectangle sheet can be created to show the thermal

distribution in any cross area.

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Simulation Result ―Plot Fields2

The region can be selected to plot the overall velocity within the
environment.

The non model box can be created to show the detailed velocity
within any certain area.

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Simulation Result ―Simulation Data

Any point or face can also be loaded into monitor. The data can be
check in Result/Solution Data/Thermal Monitor.

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Some references of Ansys Icepak

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Thanks!

Q&A

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