Thermal spreading resistance characteristics of a high power light emitting diode module

Journal Reference

Applied Thermal Engineering, Volume 70, Issue 1, 5 September 2014, Pages 361-368.

Kai-Shing Yang^a, Chi-Hung Chung^b, Cheng-Wei Tu^a, Cheng-Chou Wong^c, Tsung-Yi Yang^b, Ming-Tsang Lee^b 

a-Green Energy & Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu 310, Taiwan, ROC and

b-Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan, ROC and

c-Material & Chemical Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu 310, Taiwan, ROC.

 

Abstract

 

In this study, effects of the dimensions and the thermal conductivity of the substrate on the heat transfer characteristics of a LED module are investigated. The total thermal resistance corresponding to a LED module operating at different power levels is measured using a method following JESD51-1 and JESD51-14 standards. In addition, a finite element method (FEM) numerical simulation is carried out to analyze the heat transfer phenomena in the LED module. It is found that, for the current experimental conditions, the importance of the thermal spreading resistance effect increases with decreasing substrate thickness and/or increasing input power of the LED module, which corresponds to an increase in the total thermal resistance and correspondingly a higher chip temperature. Experimental and numerical results show that the thermal spreading resistance and thus the chip temperature can be reduced by increasing the substrate thickness or by utilizing materials with high lateral thermal conductivities (directionally-dependent) for the substrate. In consequence, for LED modules with the same substrate thickness, using graphite composite to replace aluminum as the substrate material reduces the spreading resistance by nearly 14% in the current study.

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