The Microelectronics Heat Transfer Laboratory computing facility consists of two SGI workstations and a number of PCs for computer modelling, code development, report generation and data acquisition. In addition to the computing facilities within the lab itself, the MHTL has access to the computing resources of the University at large.

The MHTL has the capability of performing numerical simulations using Flomeric's FLOTHERM software, a commercially avaiable, finite volume-based CFD package specifically designed for modelling heat transfer and fluid flow at all levels of microelectronics applications, from IC packages and devices to complete system enclosures. This software is continually used to help develop and validate new analytic models

I-DEAS, a finite element-based numerical simulation package is also used in the MHTL for heat transfer and fluid flow simulations.

Many of the analytical heat transfer models and algorithms developed by the MHTL over the past years depend on the solution of expressions that often involve complex mathematical functions. Until recently, obtaining solutions for these problems often involved the programming of approximations to these functions based on series expansions or recurrence relationships. However, with the advent of computer algebra systems such as:

Maple;
Mathematica; and
Matlab,

many of these complex algorithms can be solved directly. The MHTL supports both the Maple and Mathematica packages and is creating a library of worksheets and session files which implement many of their analytical solutions and algorithms. For more information on currently available Maple worksheets click here.

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