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There are several methods for testing for the COVID-19 virus. A cost effective and fast method is real-time fluorescence analysis (RT-LAMP). More details: Vienna Corona Team

For the a defined reaction of the substrates, all samples in the carrier must be kept at the same temperature. ADAM Research participates voluntarily in the Miriam project by calculating and optimizing the voltage drop in the necessary heating loops and the resulting temperature. In the pilot calculation the heating coil is 18 meters long in a top and bottom part. TRM3 needs only a few seconds for the current density. The geometry comes from an EAGLE design and derived Gerber files. A 1 mm aluminium plate between the top and bottom heating coils has a more uneven temperature distribution than a 2 mm thick plate. The asymmetric distribution is measured qualitatively exactly the same. The aim is to become even more homogeneous and to determine the suitable materials for the next prototypes.

Voltage drop in an 18 m coil
Calculated voltage drop in the coil
TRM3 simulation for Miriam Project
Simulated Trace Heating on 2 mm Aluminum Plate
TRM3 und Miriam Projekt
Simulated Trace Heating on 1 mm Aluminum Plate with TRM3
TRM3 und Miriam Projekt
Infrared image with 1.6 mm Aluminum Prototype

 

 

More data! Now netlists with their pads/pins can also be imported from other CAD systems, e.g. from Cadence (Allegro, Orcad), Mentor (Pads, Expedition), Zuken (Cadstar, CR8000), Eagle, Pulsonix, KiCad etc. You only have to export the IPC-D-356 file. This makes it much easier to investigate the current carrying capacity of high current applications.

  • Import ipc file: creates a table with all the nets and pads found.
  • Add Ampere values: either manually or via a .csv file, which could also come from an xls calculation.
  • Calculate how the current heats the traces. Of course also transient.

Altium users will still prefer the script. But there have been small updates as well.

More color! The imported Gerber files are no longer just black and white plots, making it difficult to distinguish layers, but are now displayed in color. This results in a fantastic depth effect in the 3D representation, which helps enormously to control the inputs and to understand the results better and to communicate them to colleagues.

Convince yourself: There is a collection of new videos on YouTube

 

After almost 2 years of development the new TRM3 is now available as beta roll-out! More elegant and faster than TRM2.

  • Altium Import fully automatic or semi-manual. Almost only 2 clicks.
  • Scripting for Altium Designer 20 enhanced.
  • Input and 3D view of the assembly integrated.
  • 3D mesh reconstruction.
  • Faster Gerber and Excellon Import.
  • Faster calculation of the potential (voltage drop) and current density.
  • Inductance matrix of the nets based on 3D current flow
  • Heat flux vectors.
  • Table of Joule heat per layer and mesh.
  • Table of the heat flow balance per component.
  • FLIR color bar.
  • Result view also 3D.
  • Video with Altium Designer

Request a test installation.

Are you looking for external support?

Europe:
We recommend Cieluch Consulting Engineers for works with Altium, Eagle and Cadence. Also with on-site for layout, circuit design and library services.

US, Canada, Mexico:
We recommend Ulisses Castro (Electronic Engineering M.Sc.) (Hardware, Advance Printed Circuit Board Engineering, Signal, Power and Thermal Integrity). Also in combination with TRM.

TRM has proven itself over the last years in many electronics companies. It is really quick and easy to set up an electro-thermal simulation model of a printed circuit board. Gerber and drill files are imported, data about the position of the pads or pins and their current values are added and the current carrying capacity, voltage drop and temperature can be calculated. Even without design files you can get interesting insights. This is the perfect stand-alone solution for a developer who needs fast results without overhead and without waiting for colleagues to work together.

But there are the large teams that work simultaneously on the printed circuit board under different aspects or outside departments that have to check functions and feasibility. For such development environments there is now a complementary offer based on ODB++. The Schindler and Schill GmbH and ADAM Research founded a joint venture at the beginning of 2017 called ADAM Labs GmbH. This includes: the CAM and DRC tool PCB-Investigator (sometimes known as EasyLogix) and know-how of TRM.

The product is called PCB-I Physics. and is an implementation of the stationary DC and power solution, not only on CPU, but also on GPU in CUDA. With a good graphics card, the speed gain is enormous. Find out more under
http://www.adam-labs.de (download)
or send a Message with the keyword "Physics". More TRM features and more will be added over the years.

The tools complement each other! Each meets different demands and there is no reason not to use both.

 

Recently some evaluation users were asking whether Gerber files are required for fundamental heat spreading studies in a printed board. No, they aren't! TRM allows to created traces, planes and circles in the graphics window of the component table (youtube: Current Carring Capacity and IPC-2221) . Add the proper material and vertical position within the layer stack and all is done. Adding heat sources or currents is the same procedure. Drill areas can be blocks penetrating several layers parametrized by their effective conductivity. I did some experiments imitating the JEDEC-51 2s2ps test boards and it works (with assumptions).

In November 2014 Douglas Brooks from UltraCAD Inc. (Kirkland, WA) chose TRM to investigate some thermal issues that attracted him since years. Before that he couldn't find the right tool, precise enough and easy to use, to do it. Meanwhile he became an enthustiastic TRM user and reported about his new experience in many articles and a book.

Now his latest summary is available: "Exiting New Technology: Thermal Risk Maganagament." The PCB Design Magazine (Feb 2017).
Please read from here: Link

Accidentally this week and last week I did some non-standard thermal simulations with through-hole pins by imitating hot solder solder wave underneath the PCB. Of course a mere thermal simualtion can only look at heat spreading in detail but cannot cover metallurgical or fabrication aspects. Nevertheless, the results gave a correct agreement of positions of the problematic pins (and those without problems) compared to the solder wave result. Among other effects it showed that local copper around a solder pin can help heat to flow toward the pin rather than flowing away from it. But all that depends on details of the layout in the bottom layer and maybe in other layers as well, the mass of the component, how the flux is dispensed and many more influencing parameters. A numerical investigation can help to reduce the number of prototypes.

Copper got more expensive. The price  for a ton of copper was jumping from 4800$ to 5800 $ at London Metal Exchange end of october 2016.

Temperature simulations with TRM uncover paths how you can design printed boards more cost effective, tailored to specific environmental conditions and applications. Do you want to pay for surplus copper?