Tool targets thermal analysis

Our firm designs electronic products, everything from power supplies to printed-circuit boards to high-power transmitters. A wire-frame model of a printedcircuit board shows temperature results after running an analysis. Red nodes indicate heat sources. A color contour map shows temperatures on the printedcircuit board. A model of a temperature-sensitive enclosure shows part of a what-if analysis to find an optimal design. As part of these projects, we are often required to perform thermal analyses. The Sauna thermal-modeling program makes this task easy, allowing us to simulate a wide variety of electronic systems, including heat sinks, circuit boards, semiconductor stackups, and complete enclosures. Sauna has been a solid performer for us, and is moderately priced. Topping the list, the program is easy to learn. This is important because our company doesn't have a dedicated thermal analyst. A clean and intuitive screen layout helps make the program simple to use. And the manual, which covers all of the situations that Sauna is capable of modeling, is filled with examples to help out beginning and occasional users. The manual steps through actual problems, an easier and more powerful way to learn than trying to follow abstract instructions. The manual clearly delineates steps to be taken and illustrates graphical and textual analysis outputs. Model definition is straight-forward. A relatively simple model can be quickly created without a lot of planning or cryptic inputs. For circuit-board analysis, users typically only need to specify material type and board dimensions, and the software creates the appropriate configuration based on a library of material properties and the current modeling setup. Users can "see" models graphically as soon as they are entered, which often eliminates the need for backtracking and error correction. The graphics area provides wire-frame or shaded models for simplified visualization. Also, multicolor temperature profiles make analysis output