A system-level thermal design specification development of electronic products considering software changes

Realizing the market demand for small size and fast processing speeds, thermal design is one of the major challenges in the development of electronic products. In addition, there are many software changes necessary to adapt to the rapid-moving trends in customer applications. Therefore it is difficult to develop a product design specification in the early stages of product development. In this study, we first introduce a typical system-level thermal design simulation method, coupling activities among modules related to software, electrical parts, and mechanical structure. In particular, this method allows us to evaluate risks related to thermal burn injury depending on the software's application. Then, we investigate this method by applying it to a design process case for electronic products that require software changes, such as having additional applications. The system-level simulation can be used to evaluate the thermal risk that may rise by the applications. We verify the design control to satisfy product quality using Systems Modeling Language (SysML) and the resulting design specification of the system architecture.