A New Measuring Method of the Thermal Resistance of Silicon p-n Diodes

This paper deals with the problem of measuring the thermal resistance of silicon p-n diodes. The values of this parameter given in the catalogs rarely correspond to the real conditions of device cooling, e.g., it concerns diodes that are placed on the heat sink. Therefore, the value of the thermal resistance has to be obtained from measurements. In this paper, a new convenient method of the measurement of the thermal resistance of silicon p-n diodes, which is based on the measurements of their dc current–voltage characteristics and the estimation of the model parameter values with the use of the PARTS software, is presented. The results of the measurements obtained by the new method are compared with the standard pulse method.