Siemens Simcenter Flotherm XT 2020.2

he Simcenter development team is pleased to announce the availability of Simcenter Flotherm 2020.2. This release is focused on extended support to electrothermal circuit simulation and system modeling in boundary condition independent reduced order models (BCI-ROM technology), improved joule heating solver speed, and more.



Joule heating simulation - faster

Joule heating solver improvements have been made resulting in significant simulation speed up. Tests indicate a speed up of between 4 -10 times faster!


The impact is obviously model dependent. However, such solve time reduction allows for greater opportunity to evaluate critical joule heating influences in more complex models during development.

Accurate electrothermal circuit simulation earlier with BCI-ROMs in VHDL-AMS format

Building on increasing demand for accuracy in electrothermal circuit simulation environments, and earlier, closer electrical-thermal design workflow, Simcenter Flotherm 2020.2 adds generation of BCI-ROMs in VHDL-AMS format. VHDL-AMS is built on IEEE Standard 1076.1 and is a hardware description language used in multi-domain simulation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal systems. This BCI-ROM format better supports transient modeling of operating modes and power-aware control in a circuit simulation tool. It extends beyond the VHDL-AMS thermal netlist generation capabilities introduced in the prior Simcenter Flotherm 2020.1 release. The thermal model supply chain from semiconductor OEM to electronics integrator is better connected for electrothermal circuit simulation tasks as result.

In short, the "boundary condition independent" aspect of reduced order models is extremely valuable, as this enables BCI-ROMs to be used in any thermal environment, while maintaining accuracy. It makes connected electrical and thermal circuit concurrent modeling achievable. With this release, BCI-ROM technology now supports both BCI-ROM and Thermal Netlist generation in VHDL-AMS and spice format for use with circuit simulation tools such as SystemVision Cloud, Xpedition AMS and many others.

Further reduced order modeling enhancements, including for 1D system simulation

Simcenter Flotherm BCI-ROM technology creates fast solving, accurate reduced order models from a 3D conduction thermal model and can be utilized in several different formats. Formats generated can run in 3rd party numerical computational tools to solve BCI-ROM matrices, in circuit simulation modeling tools (see above) and also in 1D system modeling tools (FMU format). Now it is possible also to solve BCI-ROM matrices for fast transient thermal studies in a Simcenter Flotherm standalone utility.


New Command line utility to solve BCI ROM Matrices

Simcenter Flotherm 2020.2 introduces a command line utility "BCI-ROM Matrices Standalone Solver for Simcenter Flotherm" which complements existing methods utilizing solver harnesses in 3rd party software tools. The standalone utility installs as an executable with the software. To generate BCI-ROM matrices, you simply select export option "Matrices" in the preferences window.

BCI-ROM Export option to create the Functional Mock Up (FMU) for System Simulation

BCI-ROM generation in FMU format for system simulation tools such as Simcenter Flomaster , Simcenter Amesim and others was introduced at Simcenter Flotherm 2020.1. Now in version 2020.2, generation is much easier within the interface, by selecting FMU directly as an export option rather than via a command line utility.

BCI-ROM FMU Video example: As a recap of one example of using Simcenter Flotherm generated BCI-ROMs in FMU format, I refer you to this video on a liquid cooling simulation performed in Simcenter Flomaster.


Other Simcenter Flotherm 2020.2 enhancements

Export Cell by Cell Results easily

You can now export cell by cell results easily in 2 ways that will generate a csv file when in analyze mode.

Important for clients: Select Beta features are available to preview in this software release.

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