Mentor Graphics’ new FloTHERM XT software provides advanced thermal management capabilities for electronic systems, printed circuit board (PCB) and packages of any geometric complexity.It is the industry’s first integrated mechanical design automation (MDA) and electronic design automation (EDA) solution, delivering thermal design simulation and analysis results with ease, speed and accuracy. Developed for thermal specialists and design engineers, FloTHERM XT with its CAD-centric technology and robust mesher for simulating complex shapes and geometries enables early design virtual prototyping and advanced “what-if” analysis resulting in improved product quality, minimised design iterations, and faster time to market.
FloTHERM XT supports transient analysis, Joule heating, parametric studies, extended EDA integration capabilities, and new modelling options, including a cutting-edge ability to represent copper in detail for complex PCBs. Users can work more efficiently by building and running models with a significant reduction of engineering time and effort. These capabilities provide an ideal solution for the thermal simulation of electronic devices used in a broad range of markets including automotive, transportation, consumer electronics, industrial automation as well as aerospace and defence.
New key product capabilities include:
- Transient Analysis: time-varying analyses across all industrial applications is enabled with the FloTHERM XT state-of-the-art solver and intuitive user interface (UI) with ease-of-use functionality features.
- Component and Board Manipulation: time is saved by importing any board and component layout and easily modifying data for position, size, orientation, shape and modeling level prior to transfer to FloTHERM XT.
- Joule Heating: comprehensive analysis platform predicts current density, electric potential, and associated Joule heating effects in complex electronics systems, PCBs and other high-power devices – a valuable feature for automotive and power electronics applications.
- Parametric Study: a new integrated environment for defining, solving and analyzing results for parametric variations of geometry, attributes (e.g. material, thermal) plus solution parameters significantly enhances the design optimization process.
- New Modeling Options: PCB copper nets and traces are represented in full 3D detail, critical for higher-fidelity solutions or high-power applications using Joule heating effects for critical devices on a board.
