This volume presents an overview of recent developments in the thermal management of electronic systems. This is increasingly recognized as an important factor in current design methodology. The topics covered include thermal management in general, thermally induced failure, numerical and experimental analysis of systems at various packaging levels, channels and electronic components, measurement techniques, liquid cooling, thermal characterization, thermal stress and die attach defects. This text is suitable for research and development engineers and scientists whose work involves the design and manufacture of electronic systems.

For the second time, the Eurotherm Committee has chosen Thermal Managment of Electronic Systems as the subject for its 45th Seminar, held at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium, from 20 to 22 September 1995. After the successfui first edition of this seminar in Delft, June 14-16, 1993, it was decided to repeat this event on a two year basis. This volume constitutes the edited proceedings of the Seminar. Thermal management of electronic systems is gaining importance. Whereas a few years ago papers on this subject where mainly devoted to applications in high end markets, such as mainframes and telecommunication switching equipment, we see a growing importance in the "lower" end applications. This may be understood from the growing impact of electronics on every day life, from car electronics, GSM phones, personal computers to electronic games. These applications add new requirements to the thermal design. The thermal problem and the applicable cooling strategies are quite different from those in high end products. In this seminar the latest developments in many of the different aspects of the thermal design of electronic systems were discussed. Particular attention was given to thermal modelling, experimental characterisation and the impact of thermal design on the reliability of electronic systems.

The Eurotherm Committee has chosen Thermal Management of Electronic Systems as the subject of its 29th Seminar, at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, 14-16 June 1993. This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Seminar. Thermal Management is but one of the several critical topics in the design of electronic systems. However, as a result of the combined effects of increasing heat fluxes, miniaturisation and the striving for zero defects, preferably in less time and at a lower cost than before, thermal management has become an increasingly tough challenge. Therefore, it is being increasingly recognised that cooling requirements could eventually hamper the technical progress in miniaturisation. It might be argued that we are on the verge of a revolution in thermal management techniques. Previously, a packaging engineer had no way of predicting the tempera tures of critical electronic parts with the required accuracy. He or she* had to rely on full-scale experiments, doubtful design rules, or worst-case estimates. This situation is going to be changed in the foreseeable future. User-friendly software tools, the acquisition and integrity of input and output data, the badly needed training mea sures, the introduction into a concurrent engineering environment: all these items will exert a heavy toll on the flexibility of the electronics industries. Fortunately, this situation is being realised at the appropriate management levels, and the interest in this seminar and the pre-conference tutorials testifies to this assertion.