Thermal simulation tool cuts product development time

The new release integrates a new CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) solver that can radically speed up thermal simulation, as well as introducing a number of enhancements to the tool’s functionality and user interface.

Most notable is a clever approach enabled by a revolutionary grid solver which claims the company is streets ahead of any competitive solutions.

To be made ready for thermal simulation, component or system models are represented as a mesh of grid cells created from intelligent modelling objects, CAD models and PCB layout information. However, there are many ways to generate a suitable grid and its quality and resolution is crucial to achieving an accurate solution. Depending on available computational hardware resources, engineers will often need to alter the resolution of the grid manually to focus on the thermally significant parts of the design, which can be a time consuming and complex process.

6SigmaET Release 9, however, incorporates a new and revolutionary grid and solver that is completely different from competitive solutions: the tool provides a novel way to remove the burden of having to manually optimise the grid by navigating the trade-off between computing performance and grid detail to provide optimum accuracy and performance. The powerful parallel solver within Release 9 delivers groundbreaking performance, handling complex geometries and providing accurate and sophisticated simulations, potentially in a matter of minutes. In addition to the new CFD solver, the new 6SigmaET user interface makes it easier to create a thermal model using intelligent objects such as power supplies or heat sinks, and PCB and CAD data.

Import functions in Release 9 also include IDF, IDX, XFL and Gerber file formats from EDA tools. A new object panel in the user interface displays all available intelligent modelling objects and allows them to be dragged and dropped into the model. Powerful search functions make it easier to select the appropriate object to model a given component or subsystem.

In addition, the Release 9 version adopts a modern ribbon-based user interface that replaces the traditional menus and toolbars of older-generation products. Context-sensitive ribbons highlight the key actions available for each task and enable users to quickly find the commands needed to create and analyse a model. Once each simulation has been completed, a model can be exported so that any proposed modifications can be shared easily with other engineers.