Thermal Insights: How Legato Electrothermal Simulation Ensures Reliability

2 Apr 2025 • 4 minute read

Have you ever wondered how mission-critical systems in automotive, medical, aerospace, defense, and communications maintain their reliability even under extreme conditions? Consider the automotive industry, where electronic components must function reliably in the high-temperature environment under a vehicle's hood. By simulating these conditions, designers can validate the operation of over-temperature protection circuits and ensure the reliability of automotive products.

Electrothermal Analysis: What You Need to Know

Imagine being able to predict how temperature changes will affect your electronic circuits. That's exactly what electrothermal analysis does! It's a super cool simulation technique that helps designers see how temperature variations impact the performance and reliability of their circuits. By simulating extreme conditions, designers can spot potential failures before they happen and ensure everything runs smoothly.

High-power analog circuits, especially those used in complex technologies, can get pretty hot. When they do, they are prone to premature failures due to thermal overstress, a major source of failures in high-power devices. This is where the need for electrothermal analysis comes in. It helps designers understand how temperature changes affect device behavior, such as mobility, threshold voltage, and saturation. By simulating these effects, designers can predict and mitigate potential failures due to thermal overstress.

To address these challenges, Cadence has introduced a game-changer: the Legato Reliability Solution and its incredible Electrothermal Simulation feature, powered by the Cadence Celsius Thermal Solver, to measure the impact of heat propagation. The Legato Reliability Solution is designed to address these evolving product lifecycle requirements, offering a robust toolset to eliminate early failures, endure extreme operating conditions, and extend product life. For more information, watch this video: What is the Need for Electrothermal in Legato Reliability Solution?

How Does Electrothermal Analysis Work?

Electrothermal analysis evaluates all power sources across an entire chip and examines the thermal interactions between devices. It consists of two main components: electrical simulation and thermal simulation. Here's a simplified overview of the process:

Electrical Simulation: This step produces device power, which acts as a heat source for the thermal simulation.
Thermal Simulation: The thermal solver uses the heat source to calculate device temperature.
Iteration: The device temperature is updated for the next iteration of the electrical simulation. This process continues until the power and temperature values settle.

This iterative process is known as electrothermal co-simulation or electrothermal simulation. For more information, watch this video: What is Electrothermal Analysis?

How Electrothermal Analysis Transforms Circuit Design

Improved Reliability: By accurately predicting thermal behavior, electrothermal analysis helps identify and mitigate potential thermal issues, enhancing electronic system reliability.
Optimized Design: The insights gained from electrothermal analysis enable engineers to optimize the design for better thermal performance, ensuring that components operate within safe temperature limits.
Reduced Risk of Failures: Early identification of thermal issues reduces the risk of thermal-related failures, improving electronic systems' overall reliability and longevity.

Kickstart Your Electrothermal Analysis

Setting up electrothermal analysis involves specific files and configurations. This video explains the necessary files and the Spectre use model: Understanding the Files Required for Electrothermal Analysis and Examine the Spectre Use Model

For a hands-on understanding, these demo videos showcase various aspects of performing electrothermal analysis using the Legato Reliability Solution:

Visualizing Thermal Effects

One of the coolest features of the Legato Reliability Solution is its ability to visualize thermal effects using the Virtuoso Layout Suite EXL

The heatmap viewer lets designers overlay heat information on top of the layout, showing which devices are heating up and how the temperature distribution evolves over time. This helps in identifying potential thermal issues and optimizing the design for better thermal performance. For more information, watch this video Viewing the Heatmap Violation of the Dynamic Electrothermal Simulation in the Virtuoso Layout EXL.

Therefore, The Legato Reliability Solution offers a powerful and comprehensive approach to electrothermal analysis, providing valuable insights into the thermal behavior and reliability of electronic components. By integrating electrothermal analysis into the design workflow, engineers can optimize their designs for improved reliability and reduced risk of failures.

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