FloTHERM® PCB is a radical new collaboration tool for product marketing, electrical and mechanical engineers that accelerates the conceptual thermal design of printed-circuit boards. Features and Benefits Model Building Direct interfaces to Mentor Boardstation and other popular board layout tools that automatically extract and build: Board outline, cutouts, and thickness Component position, size, and orientation Layer Stackup Detailed descriptions of the copper content (traces, pads, vias, etc) in image format. These images are transformed into a thermal conductivity map (with user controlled resolution) for the board with a novel and unique image processing technique. Property sheet driven construction of electronics objects and cooling solutions: Components heatsinks Thermal vias Daughterboards Shielding cans Potting compounds Fully integrated library capability Pre installed with a comprehensive Component Library Fully customizable Direct library item swapping Automatic library item swapping for components Import capability for part models and library folders generated with other Mentor thermal tools such as FloTHERM and FloTHERM PACK. Update functionality for the board layout. A layout change can be imported without loss of other model settings and data (eg, heatsink geometry, power definitions, etc) Environment Definition The thermal environment that will house the PCB is parametrically defined. There are options available for: Card Slots Natural Convection Forced Convection Conduction Cooled Solder Reflow Ovens For more advanced scenarios, pre-solved FloTHERM analyses can be imported to form a complex, 3D description of the surrounding air flow and temperature fields. Solving and Results The state of the art FloTHERM PCB solver predicts airflow and temperature in a matter of minutes for most designs -- no user interaction required for gridding or solving. Customized results are created with single mouse clicks. Plots are available for: Junction Temperatures Case Temperatures Average Temperatures Thermal margins Sortable, tabular views of the data are generated automatically. Multiple designs can displayed side by side for easy results comparison. Fully customizable reports are available for export. Reports can contain any combination of board inputs, environment settings, or result plots and tables. Reports are available in HTML or CSV formats. Automation Command line operation is supported. Users can load designs, import board data, solve, and create reports without opening the software.