HPC Case Study: CFD Applications On ARM


In this paper, we examine the readiness and potential of ARM-based platforms for High Performance Computing, and have benchmarked two different computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. CFD represents one of the most widely used HPC applications in aerospace, automotive and other engineering areas such as turbine-design. For server hardware, we leverage the ThunderX platform from Cavium,... » read more

How To Use CFD To Test And Analyze A Chip Package


By Prasad Tota and Robert Day Throughout the electronics industry, submicron feature size at the die level are driving package component sizes down to the design-rule level of the early technologies. Today’s integrated circuit (IC) package technology must deliver higher lead counts, reduced lead pitch, minimum footprint area, and significant volume reduction, which has led to semiconductor... » read more

1D-3D CFD And 3D-1D CFD: Simulation Based Characterization


To understand 1D-3D CFD and 3D-1D CFD, we have reviewed the history of attempts at both loose and close coupling of 1D and 3D CFD codes, the motivations of engineers who did it, and the benefits to be gained from these complementary engineering simulation technologies. Not least, because the umbrella term ‘1D/3D’ covers a number of different possible implementations with their own pros and ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor released the latest version of its FloTHERM CFD software for electronics cooling simulation, adding a new design window to create and solve variants of a model with features to improve scenario definition and design space exploration. Other enhancements include support for Phase Change Materials, more abilities for PCB designs, and an improved parallel solver. Markets IC Insig... » read more

The Democratization Of CFD


“Democratization” is a buzzword that has been circulating around the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) community for some time. In this White Paper, Keith Hanna and Ivo Weinhold of Mentor Graphicsdefine the issue, establish the facts, look at the pros and cons of various technology solutions being offered in the market today, and then suggest some pointers for the future as the CFD industr... » read more

The Best Of Both Worlds


Fidelity and accuracy are critical in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. After all, physical prototyping and testing can only be reduced if one can expect accurate simulation results. But up to now, high fidelity, high accuracy results have come with a price. Complex, realistic geometries have required hours of manual effort to clean up the model and prepare the mesh. Users have bee... » read more

Cluster Scalability Of ANSYS Fluent 12.0 For A Large Aerodynamics Case On The Darwin Supercomputer


This work examines the parallel scalability characteristics of commercial CFD software ANSYS FLUENT 12 for up to 256 processing cores, for transient CFD simulations that are heavy in I/O relative to numerical operations. In studies conducted with engineering contributions from the University of Cambridge and ANSYS, the Linux HPC environment named Darwin combined an Intel Xeon cluster with a P... » read more

What I Learned About Heatsinks Using Thermal Simulation


By Yousaf Mohammed, Student Intern at Mentor Graphics When designing electronics, heat dissipated to the surroundings by micro devices is an important consideration because heat has a powerful and stringent effect on their operation and lifespan.  When an electronic device overheats, components start to wear out more quickly, degrade, cross the threshold into safe mode, and then stop functi... » read more

Can You Really Fry an Egg on a CPU?


Solving complex thermal models with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) requires a lot of processing power, and a central processing unit (CPU) under full load generates a fair amount of heat. But can you cook an egg on it? Search online and you can find videos of people attempting to cook on their processors—I wouldn’t recommend this as a cooling solution. However, just out of curiosity, I ... » read more

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