In the hot seat: how the Cloud is taking the pressure off thermal engineers

This article originally appeared in the September'22 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES's Magazine Archives for more featured publications.

The thermal engineers are a crucial component of this balancing act. It’s their job to enable design changes – aesthetic decisions, component choices, and so on – while keeping temperature levels within required parameters.

To properly test a device and ensure its quality, engineers need to be able to access the highest quality testing platforms available. Not only do they need to be capable of simulating heat transfers at a granular level on complex devices, but in 2022, many hope to accommodate experimental or leading-edge technologies that might offer a higher-quality final product or offer a leg up on the competition.

Hardware hang-ups

This all demands some pretty significant computational firepower – and historically, that has proven something of a headache for organisations of every stripe.

Research from Future Facilities found that thermal engineers are being hampered by the hardware they use, with 41% saying they don’t have the right hardware in place for accurate thermal simulation. Over a quarter (26%) also haven’t been able to solve simulations due to the equipment they’re required to use.

It’s an understandable growing pain. Thermal engineers require a lot of computing power to dedicate to the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) equations that are used to calculate airflow and temperate in test models, and the machines capable of providing it have always demanded a significant financial investment. The shortage of silicon worldwide over the past 18 months has not made that investment cheaper.

Businesses that don’t have the financial resource to put towards such purchases tend to become overly dependent upon hardware which isn’t fit for purpose. Whether it’s multiple workstations, host-and-terminal setups, or on-site servers, engineers are forced to perform more primitive simulations – or even skip some entirely – on machines that take days rather than minutes to provide them with the information they need.

Being tied to such on-premise machines also means that it can be difficult for a thermal engineer to work remotely. In the current business climate, this is an increasingly outdated position that might cause some organisations to lose their best engineering talent to competitors that can offer more flexibility and agency.

Cloud concoctions

However, the technology that has made flexible working possible for the masses can also offer a solution here: the Cloud.

Many thermal simulation platforms are now partnering with Cloud providers in order to provide Cloud-based solving on their platforms. Engineers can load models into the CFD software, and then rely on remote server connections to provide the amount of processing cores they need to power that simulation. In some cases, Cloud providers like Rescale are able to offer over 1,400 petaflops of computational power – that’s 1,400,000,000 gigabytes. By partnering with thermal simulation software like 6sigmaET, Rescale can bring this vast computing resource to the world of thermal engineering.

Not only does this immediately address the issue of hardware power, but it does so regardless of where that engineer is – if they can access their simulation platform, they have the firepower needed regardless of their location, and regardless of the system they’re using.

While this is far cheaper than on-site hardware, it also offers the benefit of scalability. Engineers can access the hardware they need on-demand rather than through a rigid subscription, and they can do so on a model-by-model basis.

Those in control of the purse strings can thereby shape their spend around projects as they come, while thermal engineers will have the opportunity to demonstrably cut costs if they are able to efficiently schedule and execute the simulations they need.

For financial decision makers and recruitment personnel, the ability to offer flexible working off the back of such platforms can also be an important part of talent retention. Engineers that aren’t reliant on specific hardware are set free from the relative restrictions of the physical workplace and are able to collaborate with colleagues all over the world.

This is the real benefit of Cloud-based simulation: the liberation of thermal engineers from the day-to-day confines of their hardware. Cloud technologies empower engineers to develop more sophisticated simulations with fewer resources and execute them faster than ever. In 2022, this change will be a catalyse in the development of fast, powerful, and reliable electronics.