Thermal Imaging

The following picture shows a thermogram of the top side of a Picolo U4 H.264 PCI-104 RH.

The board was operating in the following conditions:

The position of U1, U3, U4 are the main power contributors, and the on-board temperature probe "t°" is added to the picture.

The right side of the picture shows the calibrated temperature scale in °C.

ThermogramForPicolo_U4_H264_PCI-104

The thermogram shows that:

Heat Production

At full processing load, the board produces typically 6 Watts (6.8 Watts max) of heat power.

The following table shows the power contribution of each of the hottest components:

Reference

Power dissipation (Watt)

Relative contribution (% total power)

U1

4,00

67%

U3

0,63

10%

U4

0,63

10%

Other components

0,75

12%

Total power

6,00

100%

Note. U1, U3, and U4 contribute together for 88% of the total power.

Board Thermal Requirements

The fundamental thermal requirement is: "The junction temperature of all integrated circuits must be kept below the max limit".

With reference to thermogram, the most critical components are U1, U3, U4. The requirements for these components are:

Note that the junction temperatures cannot practically be measured, these requirements are replaced by the following requirements that are easily verified: