Study on the temperature-dependent thermal resistance matrix of a multi-chip LED-matrix

The solid lighting industry comply with costumer's requirements of high light output and a higher grade of functionality, especially in the automotive sector. The integration of multiple LED-chips on one illuminant has the advantage of weight and size reduction. However, multiple LED-chips lead to increased power density; to get rid of their produced heat, an energy strategy is necessary. The key term is Thermal Management, to understand the thermal behavior of a LED lighting system. In this paper, the investigation of the thermal interdependencies of a 4-chip-matrix was presented. The thermal characterization was done by thermal transient measurements of each chip and their structure functions, followed by the study of its thermal resistance (R th ) matrix. The R th -matrix represented the thermal properties of each LED-chip and its interdependency. As supplement of the thermal characterization, thermal simulations were carried out. Moreover, the R th -matrix was used to analyze the LED-matrix in terms of their temperature dependency. The heat path investigation via R th -matrix showed different behaviors of the 4-chip-matrix by using different heat sink temperatures. The method was used as an evaluation tool for thermal management of LED-matrix systems.