Abstract
The development of modern technology goes fast. Traditional wireless technology, including Bluetooth, Infrared Data Association (IrDA), Wi-Fi and Wi-Max, cannot meet the needs of consumers. Therefore, 60 GHz wireless transmission module is invented to fulfill the consumers’ demand. The advantages of 60 GHz wireless transmission module are its short transmission distance and high transmission data rate, and the transmission data rate can be increased from megabits per second to gigabits per second. The 60 GHz wireless transmission module is regarded as likely to become the mainstream of the next generation of wireless transmission technology. However, the module has the characteristics of small volume and high power, and potentially leads to high power density and high chip junction temperature. High chip junction temperature would affect the electrical performance and reliability of the module. This work firstly investigates the steady-state thermal performance of an advanced 60GHz frontend phased array transmitter module under natural convection through numerical simulation and experiment. Numerical simulation is performed by the finite element analysis package ANSYSTM and the computational fluid dynamics analysis program SolidWorks Flow SimulationTM. The results are demonstrated with each other, and also with the IR thermography measurement data under the natural convection based on JEDEC specifications and thermal couple measurement. By the validated heat transfer numerical model, this work further evaluates the influences of various distributions of heat sources, different type of package, different type of assembly and different number of antenna elements on the thermal performance. This work also uses the thermal dissipation components such as heat spreader and heat sink to enhance the thermal performance. The crucial parameters including geometry and material properties are identified through parametric study, and further applied to the subsequent experimental design using a Taguchi method to propose the optimal parametric setting for maximal thermal performance.