Cooling Methods for Electronics Design

Student Comments on Three Day Course No. 236

(Course Outline)

Why is thermal analysis needed in the design of electronics packages?

Quite simply, the cooler the parts operate, the more reliable they are. When equipment runs cooler, failure rates are lower and the mean time between failures is higher.

In today's economic environment, mechanical engineers often have to undertake the work of the specialized thermal engineer. A good understanding of thermal problems and how to solve them will help reduce redesign and its resulting schedule slippage.

You will find Mr. Leatherman's approach to thermal analysis helpful for both system level and component level problems.

Where has this course been held?

This course has been presented to engineers and technicians at the following organizations:

Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO
Boeing, Huntsville, AL
C-MAC Engineering, Kanata, Ontario
Dell Computer, Austin, TX
Hewlett Packard, Sacramento, CA
Lockheed Martin/British Aerospace, Manassas, VA
NASA-Glenn, Cleveland, OH
NASA-MSFC, Huntsville, AL
Nortel, Ottawa, Ontario

In addition, open courses have been held for individuals from many organizations

Do the students feel the course is worthwhile? Here are some student comments on what they liked about the course.

Very good course. Knowledgeable instructor, excellent course material.
Methodologies presented to solve any kind of thermal problems.
The problem we had to solve and the methodical approach we were shown in finding the solution.
Dick should be a professor. Best class I have ever taken.
Dick Leatherman. He seemed to put a practical spin on the problems.
The book provided will be extremely helpful with future projects.
The explanations and real life situations that make the course nicer for learning.
Good presentation of technical material, plus addition of practical knowledge.
Very comprehensive. Materials were excellent.
Practical knowledge presented by the instructor was very applicable.
The content was very broad; from basics to modeling to design to test. And it included several practical suggestions/experience for each theory presented.
Fantastic amount of material, practical applications and examples. Good balance of theory, practice, examples and war stories.
Course instructor presented the material in a rational, comfortable manner. His presentation style and ability to relate to his students' interest level was much appreciated.
Well presented, understandable; instructor not bogged-down in the details.
It was really well focused on what we are doing as a business. Really well presented for engineers that are not thermal specialists.
Course content, opportunity to interact and be taught by someone with such vast experience.
Working through the thermal analysis of the class problem.
Large volume of info about wide variety of situations and experiences.
Practical solutions and applications brought by instructor with much experience.

Remarks from student letters:

I would like to express my thanks for the delivery you gave on the thermal course. Nothing can replace personal experiences that relate to the formulas and principles. Bottom line, I noticed you gave it all you had. Also, the creativity that it needed was excellent. I totally enjoyed it. I heard the same comments from the troop that attended.
Yesterday, I completed TTI’s course # 236, “Thermal Analysis and Heat Transfer In Electronics Design” which was presented at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). It was by far, the best training class I have ever taken at GRC. This type of training is typically only available in a course such as this. Mr. Leatherman covered a wide variety of practical heat transfer topics during the class. His years of experience and thorough knowledge of the subject were clearly reflected in his lectures.
It's not often that we have training that is as on-target as this one and entertaining as well…my friend and I kept nudging each other with "he's been there, he's been there."

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