Clearing up the confusion about the IPC 2152 with Mike Jouppi, the “Thermal Man''. Mike originally sat on one of the IPC task groups working on standards for thermal management. He will help us be enlightened about thermal management on PCB, which will be very useful to apply to your next PCB design project.
Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics
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Show Highlights:
Storytime! Mike's background in PCB design and involvement in IPC task groups
He worked in the Airforce as Missile Maintenance Specialist and later had an internship at Hughes Aircraft in Tucson, Arizona, where he did a thermal analysis
The TQM mindset—total quality management is what kept him moving forward
What does it mean when “Power was Negligible”; this led to Mike's first encounter with the IPC document


How to take a vacuum environment into consideration? This is the question that leads Mike to start research and develop testing methods
Mikes received funding from Lockheed to do internal research and perform testing to understand trace heating
Mike shares his journey to seek funding for testing and how he ended up setting up his lab in his basement
He developed 68 different charts, 13 of those were raw data, and the remaining ones were all analytical creations with the thermal model


Mike started working with IPC in 1999, IPC 2152 came out in 2009
Mike wrote a chapter in Happy Holden’s Printed Circuits Handbook
Clearing up confusion over what IPC 2221 and IPC 2152 represent, Mike emphasizes using the documentation as a baseline
Another storytime! How did Mike come up with the name “Thermal Man”? The story involved measuring the thermal properties of an egg. Visit thermalman.com to check out Mike’s website
More research was performed involving flex, heating vias, and microvias
Discovery of the original data to the charts that are in IPC 2221 documented in the National Bureau of Standards report from 1955ish
Mike has the data to prove that copper planes and copper pour affects thermal management
The major players in terms of temperature response of the trace:
Influence of the copper planes
Mounting configuration


Before the IPC took over the industry standards in electronic design, the National Bureau of Standards (the government) handled the management and documentations
Check out more videos and courses about Thermal Management on Altium Academy Youtube Channel

Links and Resources:
Connect with Mike Jouppi on LinkedIn
Visit Mike Jouppi’s Electronics Thermal Management LLC website
OnTrack Episode with Isvan Novak: DesignCon 2020’s ‘Engineer of the Year’ Talks Power Integrity, Picosatellites, and Simulation Tools
Read Happy Holden’s Article on Altium Resource Hub
IPC Website
IPC 2221 and IPC 2152

Connect with Zack on LinkedIn
Full OnTrack Podcast Library
Altium Website
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Learn More about Altium Nexar
Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics