Query: IGBT HTRB Fail

Candidate papers:

abstract: To evaluate the reliability of endure high voltage when IGBT is turned off and eliminate the defective devices, HTRB (High Temperature Reverse Bias) test is one of the necessary tests for IGBT before it's produced. According to the IEC standard, DUTs (Device Under Test) are usually blocked, and bear forward bias voltage, which is preferably 80% of VCESmax. During the HTRB test, DUT junction temperature should be set at maximum virtual junction temperature Tvj(max) which is usually between 125degC to 150degC. Due to high voltage, even though the leakage current is very low, high power semiconductor devices generate dissipated power during HTRB test, which lead to junction temperature increase. And to access the reliability accurately, the rise of temperature cannot be neglected. To insure the test is carry out at standard temperature, this paper monitors DUTs junction temperature by using leakage current as a TSEP (Temperature Sensitive Electrical Parameter) The experiment proofs that higher the junction temperature is, the more accurate the measure results will be, in the operating temperature range. In this paper, thermal resistance measurement is used to evaluate the validity of this method.
author_names: Chunsheng Guo

Wenyi Cai

Jinyuan Li

Sijin Wang

Lei Wei

Yaosheng Li
title: Online IGBT Temperature Measurement via Leakage Current in HTRB Test
venue: Journal of Physics: Conference Series
year: 2019

abstract: High thermal and electrical stress, over a period of time tends to deteriorate the health of power electronic switches. Being a key element in any high power converter systems, power switches, such as insulated gate bipolar junction transistors (IGBTs) and metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors, are constantly monitored to predict when and how they might fail. A huge fraction of research efforts involves the study of power electronic device reliability and development of novel techniques with higher accuracy in the health estimation of such devices. Until today, no other existing technique can determine the number of lifted bond wires and their locations in a live IGBT module, although this information is extremely helpful to understand the overall state of health of an IGBT power module. Through this article, a new method for online condition monitoring of IGBTs and IGBT modules using spread spectrum time domain reflectometry has been proposed. Unlike traditional methods, this research work concentrates at the gate terminals (low voltage) of the device instead of looking at the collector side. In addition, the RL equivalent circuit to represent a bond wire has been developed for the device under test and simulated in CST Studio Suite to measure the reflection amplitudes. Experimental results were obtained using a prototype reflectometry hardware, and both the simulation and experimental results have been compared. These results prove that a single measurement is sufficient to predict the failure of the device instead of looking at the traditional precursor parameter (VCEON) With only two sets of measurements, it is possible to locate the aged device inside a module and detect the number of bond wire liftoffs associated with that device.
author_names: Abu Hanif

Douglas DeVoto

Faisal Khan
title: Bond Wire Damage Detection and SOH Estimation of a Dual Pack IGBT Power Module Using Active Power Cycling and Reflectometry
venue: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
year: 2020

abstract: In this paper, we studied the current flow mechanism of PPI (Press Pack IGBT) module under short circuit condition in VSC HVDC application. Through the anatomical analysis of PPI modules tested in different current duration, the change process of the faulty chip and packaging materials was observed. The concept of "heat infection" between subunits in a faulty PPI module was proposed, which means the remaining good chips fail due to heat transmission from the faulty chip. Combining the experimental result and simulation analysis, we find that explosion proof ability is the primary condition for a failed PPI module to have long term flow capability under short circuit condition. Meanwhile, the selection of packaging materials and the thickness of the bypass structure must be fully considered, in order to avoid heat concentration and fusing of internal materials.
author_names: Zhen Wang

Han Li

Chao-qun Wan

Haihui Luo

YaDong Ren

Gui Chang

Yu-Ze Chen

TingChang Shi

Guozhong Dong
title: Research on The Current Flow Mechanism of Press Pack IGBT under Short Circuit Condition in VSC HVDC System
venue: 2020 4th International Conference on HVDC (HVDC)
year: 2020

abstract: Recent field failure reports have showed that power cell faults represent the highest contributor to overall CHB converter failure rates. A big portion of these failures are related to power switches, capacitors, gate driver and control circuit boards. Focusing on power switches faults, they normally fail as short circuit or open circuit. Short circuits are dangerous events, however, there is standard method for fast neutralization. On the other hand, open circuit faults are not as fatal as short circuits. Nonetheless, in some situations, the load could not tolerate current imbalance caused by open circuit faults requiring an effective detection and identification method. In general, IGBT open circuit faults are more difficult to detect, and there is no standard method for detection. As a result, there is an industry need for detection, classification, and identification techniques that can perform effectively under different motor loading conditions. In this paper, a proposed method for classifying cell faults caused by IGBT open circuit is presented. Simulation results are provided in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.
author_names: Ahmed Abuelnaga

Mehdi Narimani
title: Open Circuit IGBT Fault Classification using Phase Current in a CHB Converter
venue: IECON 2019 45th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
year: 2019

abstract: Aiming at the fatigue failure of IGBT module package, the failure evolution process of the weak link bond wire and solder layer is studied. For bond wire failure, the evolution process of bond wire cracks is studied. The variation law in the evolution process is analyzed by the bond wire resistance as the characterization parameter of crack evolution. For solder layer failure, the growth and evolution process of solder layer voids is studied. The effects of solder layer voids on the junction temperature and stress of the module are analyzed, and two void growth modes are given. Taking the thermal resistance as the characterization parameter of the void evolution, the variation law of the thermal resistance parameter in the evolution process is analyzed. The results show that the crack has little effect on the resistance at the initial stage of the bond wire crack, as the crack grows to a certain extent, the equivalent resistance will expand rapidly, causing the module to fail; under the void growth fusion modes, the effect of the void on the thermal resistance increases rapidly as the progress of the void fusion increases.
author_names: Shengxue Tang

Dong Chen

Fang Yao

Zhankai Li
title: Package Fatigue Failure Evolution of IGBT Modules
venue: 2019 IEEE 3rd International Electrical and Energy Conference (CIEEC)
year: 2019

abstract: In order to improve the heat dissipation capability of high power press pack insulated gate bipolar transistor (PP IGBT) the nanosilver paste was utilized to package a single 3.3 kV/50 A PP IGBT chip; we called it sintered pack IGBT (SP IGBT) in this letter and revealed the reliability of such a device based on a power cycling test (PCT) The test results show that the ON state voltage (Vce) of SP IGBT sharply increased to 9.5 V after 5500 cycles, and then the device emerged with a special short circuit failure. The huge heat generated at the moment of device failure caused the sintered nanosilver layer to melt and then squeezed it out by the external pressure, and the melt silver paste directly connected the collector molybdenum layer to the emitter of SP IGBT die, which is different from the short circuit failure of fully PP IGBT due to being electrically broken down. The failed device is analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) the failure mechanism is explained by a finite element analysis, and such work is helpful for the package crafts improvement on the press pack power modules.
author_names: Helong Li

Haiyang Long

Ran Yao

Xiao Wang

Yi Zhong

Renze Yu

Jinyuan Li
title: A Study on the Failure Evolution to Short Circuit of Nanosilver Sintered Press Pack IGBT
venue: IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology
year: 2020

abstract: Abstract An epoxy molded package is compared with a silicone gel module with IGBTs chips in short circuit failure modes with respect to critical energy, I2Tmelting and explosion energy capabilities. Special importance was attached to "ohmic mode" assessment and ageing of the failed chips. The molded technology yields a very low and stable Rsc 1000 h) also exhibit an acceptable drift of the Rsc property
author_names: Frederic Richardeau

Zhifeng Dou

Emmanuel Sarraute

Jean-Marc Blaquiere

Didier Flumian
title: Comparison of IGBT short circuit failure "ohmic mode" Epoxy molded package versus silicone gel module for new fail safe and interruptible power converters
venue: Microelectron. Reliab.
year: 2011

abstract: Dielectric liquids are incompressible, able to fill voids and have selfhealing effect and hence are being considered as alternative encapsulation materials to establish power electronics at ambient high pressure at subsea conditions. In a long term endurance test, insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) chips subjected to 6.5 kV DC stress in dielectric oil environment was reported to have failed after less than one week in operation. A critical look at the failed objects revealed contamination fibres at the surface and around the high field regions. This paper presents the numerical simulation of field distribution around a conducting fibre at the surface of the IGBT chip. It also evaluates the influence of the nature of the encapsulation material on the integrity of power electronic modules using a long term experiment at a medium elevated temperature for high and low relative humidity operated close to service load using IGBT relevant chips. Finite element method (FEM) calculations show how the high field region can be shielded from impurities that can easily trigger partial discharge (PD) and breakdown. The simulation suggests that coating the surface of the module with a thin polymer layer with a thickness of 20 mm or more could be sufficient to improve the reliability of the encapsulation system. Additional polymer coat with thickness 27 mm on the chip made the system survive without failure for 67 weeks under test and dry operating condition. Meanwhile, thick coating such as silicone gel protected the object longer under higher relative humidity.
author_names: Abdelghaffar Amoka Abdelmalik

Knut Brede Liland
title: Electric field enhancement control in active junction of IGBT power module
year: 2020

abstract: High thermal and electrical stress, over a period of time tends to deteriorate the health of power electronic switches. Being a key element in any high power converter systems, power switches such as Insulated Gate Bipolar Junction Transistors (IGBTs) and Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) are constantly monitored to predict when and how they might fail. A huge fraction of research efforts involves the study of power electronic device reliability and development of novel techniques with higher accuracy in health estimation of such devices. Through this paper, a new method for online condition monitoring of IGBTs and IGBT modules using spread spectrum time domain reflectometry (SSTDR) has been proposed. Unlike traditional methods, this research work concentrates at the gate terminals (low voltage) of the device instead of looking at the collector side. The IGBT collector emitter ON voltage or VCEON was chosen as the failure precursor parameter as the reference, and the auto correlated magnitudes of the SSTDR signal for the new and the aged IGBTs were plotted and compared.
author_names: Abu Hanif

Swagato Das

Faisal Khan
title: Active power cycling and condition monitoring of IGBT power modules using reflectometry
venue: 2018 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC)
year: 2018

abstract: In this paper, a fast and practical method is proposed for open circuit (OC) fault diagnosis (FD) in a three phase quasi Z source inverter (q ZSI) Compared with the existing fast OC FD techniques in three phase voltage source inverters, this method is more cost effective since no ultrafast processor or high speed measurement is required. Additionally, the method is independent of the load condition. The proposed method is only applicable to Z source family inverters and is based on observing the effect of shoot through intervals on the system variables during switching periods. The proposed algorithm includes two consecutive stages: OC detection and fault location identification. When both stages of the OC FD algorithm are done, a redundant leg is activated and utilized instead of the failed leg. The accuracy of the proposed method is confirmed by the experimental results from a low voltage q ZSI prototype.
author_names: Mokhtar Yaghoubi

Javad Shokrollahi Moghani

Negar Noroozi

Mohammad Reza Zolghadri
title: IGBT Open Circuit Fault Diagnosis in a Quasi Z Source Inverter
venue: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics
year: 2019