Recent advances on thermal analysis of stretchable electronics

•Recent advances on thermal analysis of stretchable electronics are overviewed.•Scaling laws for the temperature increase in a constant and pulsed mode are established.•Design guidelines for thermal management of stretchable electronics are provided.

Stretchable electronics, which offers the performance of conventional wafer-based devices and mechanical properties of a rubber band, enables many novel applications that are not possible through conventional electronics due to its brittle nature. One effective strategy to realize stretchable electronics is to design the inorganic semiconductor material in a stretchable format on a compliant elastomeric substrate. Engineering thermal management is essential for the development of stretchable electronics to avoid adverse thermal effects on its performance as well as in applications involving human body and biological tissues where even 1–2 °C temperature increase is not allowed. This article reviews the recent advances in thermal management of stretchable inorganic electronics with focuses on the thermal models and their comparisons to experiments and finite element simulations.