Abstract
A simplified thermal analysis model has been developed for predicting the increase in internal temperature of an optical disc drive. This model represents heat dissipation paths in terms of the heat generated by the drive's parts and the sum of the paths' thermal resistances. The calculated results showed good agreement (within 20%) with experimental measurements of a DVD-RAM drive operating at double speed (2X). When this thermal analysis model was used to design a natural cooling system for a new optical disc drive, the resulting thermal resistance was 25% lower than that of a conventional drive.
