Hi Philip Ouellette, [quote userid="314478" url="~/support/data-converters-group/data-converters/f/data-converters-forum/1354761/ads1235-grounding-thermal-pad-with-bipolar-power/5172778#5172778"]My question is does the thermal pad play a role in the thermal management of the IC? Does the physical implementation of the PCB pad matter? [/quote] In the case of this device, no, not really. But this is not a true statement for all QFN devices of course. As mentioned, this device is not really high power so there is not significant thermal dissipation through the pad However, note that the thermal characteristics provided in the datasheet use a 4-layer PCB with the vias as shown in the mechanical drawings. See section 3.4 in this document for more info: https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slua271c/slua271c.pdf?ts=1714507238517 . So it is possible that the thermal characteristics will be different if you employ a different PCB structure and/or via configuration (we haven't characterized the thermal performance any other way, so we cannot tell you how much or if these specs would change). That being said, if your system will be at approximately 25C then this likely wouldn't be an issue anyway If you have a thermal pad pour on the top layer that then connects to the AVSS pin, and then drop a via to the AVSS plane / polygon, this will likely be fine. If this is not what you wanted to do please draw a picture so we can review -Bryan
↧