Investigation on current density limits in power printed circuit boards

Joule heating of copper traces is known as one major failure cause in high current printed circuit boards. The paper summarizes tests that were performed to investigate the actual failure mechanisms related to high current densities. The current values at which the boards failed show how conservative the present design rules for traces and via holes are. An electrothermal modeling method for printed circuit board is proposed for further analysis of current and temperature distributions in different layout configurations and under different load conditions.