Characterizing the measurement precision of thermal resistance measurements: Research Articles

Abstract

The measurement process of the thermal interface resistance tester combines physical measurements and computer simulations to obtain the measured value of the thermal resistance of a material. The computer simulation model is calibrated by 14 parameters that have been estimated from various experiments. The estimation errors in these parameters contribute to the measurement error in the thermal resistance. The following research questions were raised: (1) What calibration parameter errors have a large contribution to the thermal resistance error? (2) How does this error depend on the reference value of the thermal resistance measured under standard conditions? The main point in this paper is to show the use of statistical modelling to estimate the effect of the calibration parameter errors on the thermal resistance measurement precision by means of a tolerance design procedure that is based on the model. Our final conclusion is that two out of 14 calibration parameters dominate the thermal resistance error, and that their effects strongly depend on the reference thermal resistance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.