Thermal Resistance

 
In many applications, components as transistors, voltage regulators and audio amplifiers
get hot because of electric power. In those cases, we need to apply a heat dissipator, in
order to facilitate the heat to flow to the air, keeping the components temperature into
safe limits.

The thing is: how do we choose the heat dissipator's size that is best suited for our
requirements? The dissipator's ability to dissipate heat to the ambient depends on many
physical and geometrical factors, and its determination is very complex. However, for
our needs, the whole phenomena can be represented by one single parameter: the
thermal resistance.
Let's suppose we have a semiconductor device like a regulator or a transistor, and we
know the amount of  power that the component is dissipating, for example 10 Watts.
This power is generated inside the device,
becoming heat, which flows from this point to
the sorrounding air. This course can be divided
into two steps:

1.-  From the heat generation focus, called

"junction", to the component's outside surface
or "case".

2.- From case to air.

Heat will flow easier or more difficult

depending on the
course's thermal resistance, which is inverse to the ability to conduct heat. The relation
between power and temperature on a step from a point "a" to a point "b", characterized
by its thermal resistance, can be expressed and represented as follows:
 

Where is the thermal resistance from

point a to point b.
It indicates how many centigrades the
temperature on point "a" will rise up over
point "b" for each Watt of power
dissipated. Its unit is ºC/Watt.
Now, as we said before, our model has two thermal resistances in series, so its
equivalent thermic circuit would look like this: 

As in electrical circuits, values of thermal resistances in series can be added to find the
total thermal resistance, so the circuit can be reducet to the next:

Where

is the total thermal resistance from 

junction to ambient. And the
ecuation for this thermal circuit is:

Then for a given device, which we know the power dissipation, thermal resistance and
ambient temperature, we can easily calculate the temperature reached by the junction.
For doing that, we need to isolate the junction temperature from the preceeding
ecuation:
Thermal resistance values are characteristic of each component, and we can find them
on the component datasheet.

Design Example

Let's refer to our regulator circuit on Chapter Four,  where a LM7812 1 Amper regulator
develops a power of 3.43 Watts. Looking into the datasheet's. Looking for into the
datasheet's small print, we will find the thermal resistance specifications:

The most used package is TO-220 (shown on Chapter Four), so:

    and            total resistance:

This means that the chip temperature will rise 54 º C  above ambient temperature for
each watt dissipated by the regulator. For ambient temperature, we must choose the
worst case, for example 45ºC (into the cabinet or box). Then junction temperature can
reach:

Ops! It seems too high temperature. Let's take a look into "Absolute Maximum Ratings"
section to find out how much can it resist.

This chip can only resist 150ºC, with 230ºC it will burn out. Definitively it needs a heat
dissipator. Typical commercial values are 10ºC/W, 5ºC/W, 1ºC/W, 0.5ºC/W .... . Let's
see what happens with a 10ºC/W heat dissipator. We can consider that the heat
dissipator replaces the case-ambient segment, so the thermal model  becomes:
We can consider that the heat
dissipator replaces the case-
ambient segment, so the
thermal model  becomes --->

       

Which means that the junction will rise 14ºC above ambient temperature, for each Watt,
Then, the maximum temperature reached by the junction with a 10ºC/W heat dissipator
is:

Much better. Besides, at 150ºC the regulator will burn out, but there are some
characteristics that get worse when reaching near 125ºC. So 93ºC is pretty safe.