Measurement of junction temperature of an LED

Luminaire
 Amith Shambu Engineering Manipal Institute of Technology
Deparment of Electrical and Electronics [email protected]
Abstract—As the long term reliability is dependent on the
junction temperature of the LED’s, accurate measurement of
temperature of the LED’s in modern day luminaires is
necessary to determine the life of LED.
The diode junction in the ready to use modern day luminaires
is not easily accessible as the optical system and heat sink are
in its vicinity. This also makes the measurement of the junction
temperature using infrared cameras and thermocouples more
complex. In order to measure the junction temperature
satisfactorily, this paper explores the various methods to
measure the temperature of LED junction satisfactorily.

Keywords— Luminaire, junction temperature (Tj), LED, thermo-

reflectance thermography (TRT), forward voltage (VD), drive
current (ID). Fig 2 : Junction Temperature Tj vs Luminous flux [
As it can be seen, the rise in temperature drastically affects
I. INTRODUCTION the output luminous flux of the LED. This, as shown in the
The power supply and the thermal management system are figure above, can be observed to be fairly linear. Owing to
the weakest links in an LED luminaire. Temperature of the the prolonged operation at higher temperatures, the
diode junction plays a vital role in deciding the life of the wavelength emitted by the LED chip changes. The change is
LED and its performance. LED ages rapidly and its light generally very small, but since the phosphor coating of the
output is reduced due to higher junction temperatures. LED’s are very sensitive to the deviation in input
Results of thermal investigations on the of a LED down-light wavelength, the conversion by phosphor is insufficient so
suggest that the inherent forward voltage and junction that the efficacy of the LED recedes. LED’s are rated for a
temperature dependency of LED’s can be used to measure specific maximum temperature, beyond which they’re
and monitor LED junction temperature in a luminaire under bound to fail as at this temperature, thermal management
operational conditions. system of the LED’s is compromised due to the non-uniform
The LED luminaire is tested for its life using the TM-21 test, distribution of current which in turn is caused by material
the values collected at zero hours is normalized to 1(100%) homogeneity. This ultimately creates local hotspots causing
and the average of measured data of all samples is the complete burn out of device. As we have now discussed
normalized. Data used for curve fitting is the last 5000 hours why thermal management or the measurement of junction
of test duration if test duration is less than 6000 hours or for temperature for thermal management is necessary, we shall
at least 50% of the test duration if test duration is greater now look into different measurement techniques.
than 6000 hours. Of all the proposed techniques so far, only a few of them are
able to reproduce the junction temperature accurately.
They are:
1. Using the correlation between forward voltage drop
of LED and junction temperature.
2. Thermo-reflectance Thermography.
III. MEASUREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
Let us now explore the different measurement techniques to
analyze the effects of increasing junction temperature.
A. Using the correlation between forward voltage drop and
of LED and junction temperature
For a constant current ‘I’ flowing through the circuit, we can
Figure 1: IES TM-21 predictions
maintain the junction at two different temperatures, Tj 1 and
This curve is further extrapolated for ANSI-B50L70 Tj2 (Tj2> Tj1). The corresponding forward voltages are V F1
predictions which then determine the life of the LED. As it is and VF2 respectively.
not a practically feasible option to test the LED for relatively
long hours. The data thus obtained is extrapolated using a
suitable technique and the life of LED is thus estimated.

II. METHODS OF MEASUREMENT

A number of methods to measure the junction temperature
Tj of an LED have been proposed. As the T j shifts the peak
of the spectrum of the LED towards IR region, it is hence
important for us to check performance assessment of the
unit. As the Tj cannot be directly measured using thermo- Figure 3: Junction temperature (Tj) vs Drive current(IF)
couples or infrared cameras due to the presence of heat sinks
and diffuser around the LED.
It can be seen that with increasing temperature, the drive
current also increases linearly, but the response to the
change in temperature is more rapid with the change in
current than with the voltage.

Figure 4: Junction temperature (Tj) vs Forward Voltage drop

(VF)
This relation can be given by the following equations: Figure 5 : Relationship between forward voltage (Vf ) and
junction temperature (Tj)
I=IseVf/n*Vt (1) In this method, a LED luminaire is placed inside a
temperature controlled oven. The initial temperature of the
VT= kTj/q (2) oven is at 25ºC. The LED luminaire reaches the thermal
equilibrium at this temperature in about 30 minutes. Once
Equation (1) gives the equation governing the current thermal equilibrium is achieved it is safe to say that the
flowing through the diode. Is is the reverse saturation junction of the LED is also at 25ºC, the same temperature as
current, Vf is the forward voltage drop of the diode and n is that of the oven. The next step is to pass a short duration
the ideality factor (varying fom 1-2) . Equation (2) gives the current pulse through the LED and measure the forward
relation between the thermal voltage of the diode (V t) and voltage drop. The LED luminaire is injected with a small
the junction temperature (Tj). ‘k’ is the boltzmann’s constant magnitude (around 1 mA) current pulse for duration of less
and ‘q’ is the charge of an electron. Combining equation (1) than 1ms, with this we make sure the junction temperature
and (2) we have: doesn’t heat up. Owing to the low duty cycle, we can ignore
the temperature rise of the junction and safely that oven
Is2=Is1eK(Tj2- Tj1) (3) temperature is the same as the junction temperature.
The forward voltage is measured for varying values of
Now keeping the temperature constant at two different currents. In steps of 10ºC oven temperatures were changed
junction temperatures Tj1 and Tj2 with saturation currents at from 10ºC to 100ºC. There is an interval of 1 hour between
these temperatures being Is1 and Is2 from equation (1) we can successive measurements, giving enough time for the LED
deduce luminaire to reach thermal equilibrium under the new oven
temperature. Measurements were taken for five teams and
their mean was used for computation.
(4)
B. Thermoreflectance thermography(TRT):
In this method, LED surface is determined using TRT. A
Cancelling out Is1 from both sides and rearranging terms. We transient thermal tester (T3ster) will be used to measure its
get ambient-junction thermal resistance. This is then used to
determine the junction temperature. TRT measurements
were carried out with 5X objective lens and source of
(5) illumination with wavelength at 405 nm. This was
specifically chosen so as to provide better CCD response.
The charge coupled device (CCD) captures light and
The graph given below gives the relationship between the converts it to digital data that is recorded by the camera.
forward voltage drop and the temperature is as given below TRT works via measurement in relative change in
for constant diode current. reflectivity ΔR of a surface as a function of ΔT. The
following equation governs the parameters mentioned
above:

ΔR/R = CTR*ΔT (6)

Where CTR is the TR co-efficient of the material. The value

of this TR coefficient is determined first by placing a
thermo-electric sample to vary the temperature for which
ΔR can be measured. The slope of the curve ΔR/R vs ΔT design of the LED. Various methods for natural convective
gives the value of CTR. heat sink are proposed using a mathematical algorithm
based on spreading resistance model. By using this method,
the optimal fin configuration and corresponding thermal
performance of the heat sink can be readily predicted
according to the input base plate dimensions, ambient
condition, heat dissipation rate, and LED chip distributions.
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