Search query: Reliability of power cycling for IGBT power semiconductor modules

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abstract: Power cycling capability is one of the most important reliability items in application semiconductor modules. This paper describes the mechanism of power cycling by analysis of the structure of lead based solder and joint failure due to fatigue was studied to ascertain improvement in the power cycling lifetime. Lead based solder has a relatively weaker yield strength which means that plastic deformation leads to deterioration. Therefore, tin silver based solder was selected as a higher yield strength material, and a new composition which has both excellent mechanical properties and wettability was developed. Concerning the failure mechanism of power cycling for this newly developed solder material, solder joint failure and aluminum wire bond failure were clearly distinguished, and the lifetime prediction curve was clarified by FEM analysis and detailed failure analysis. Furthermore, it was proved that the deterioration of new tin silver based solder is caused by thermal fatigue with the grain growth of tin. Thus, longer power cycling capability is achieved by using this newly developed solder instead of conventional lead based solder.
author_names: Akira Morozumi

K Yamada

T Miyasaka

Yoshio Seki
title: Reliability of power cycling for IGBT power semiconductor modules
venue: Conference Record of the 2001 IEEE Industry Applications Conference. 36th IAS Annual Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37248)
year: 2001

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: Applications under extreme conditions, such as solid circuit breakers and electromagnetic launching systems, are great challenges to semiconductor power devices. The die attach solder joint is as one of the most vulnerable structures and critical to the reliability of insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules. In this paper, IGBT modules were cross sectioned and tested under pulse high current power cycling. The failure mechanism of the die attach solder in IGBTs at pulse high current modes was investigated. Evolution of microdefects in the die attach solder during power cycling was characterized and factors for the failure of die attach solder joints was discussed. The results revealed that voids, cracks, and detachment of interface were the major microdefects in the die attach solder layer. A detachment of the Si/Sn Ag Cu (SAC) interface is verified as the major failure mode under pulse high current power cycling. Interface cracks between the Si chip and die attach solder layer were found to initiate first at the solder layer edges and then extended to the center of the solder layer with the increase of power cycles. The detachment of Si/SAC interface was more similar to the brittle fracture. The junction temperature swing and heating rate were the key factors for detachment of the Si/SAC interface.
author_names: Yongle Huang

Yifei Luo

Fei Xiao

Binli Liu
title: Failure Mechanism of Die Attach Solder Joints in IGBT Modules Under Pulse High Current Power Cycling
venue: IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics
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 (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: A power cycling test bench is realized for the lifetime analysis of IGBT power modules and for the development of a reliability management system predicting the deterioration of the devices. The focus is on converters for doubly fed induction generators used in wind turbines. In these applications, due to the low frequent power losses under steady state conditions and due to changing wind conditions, the thermomechanical stress on IGBT power modules is high. The presented test bench offers accelerated ageing of the power semiconductor devices under real load conditions with the phase legs operating from a 1070VDC dc link allowing sinusoidal load currents up to 800A amplitude at frequencies from 0.1Hz to 13Hz.
author_names: Dennis Wagenitz

Andre Westerholz

Eike Erdmann

Andreas Hambrecht

Sibylle Dieckerhoff
title: Power cycling test bench for IGBT power modules used in wind applications
venue: Proceedings of the 2011 14th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications
year: 2011

abstract: This paper presents a numerical analysis of the temperature profiles within the semiconductor devices of modular multilevel converters (MMCs) These temperature profiles are essential for assessing the power cycling lifetime of IGBT modules, which influences the converter reliability. An electro thermal simulation model has been established, combining a dynamic thermal model of the semiconductor devices with a detailed model of the MMC topology and its associated control loops. Conduction losses and switching losses in the semiconductors are calculated online in the simulation, using the instantaneous voltages and currents in the devices. The presented simulation results reveal low losses and limited thermal stresses in terms of peak to peak temperature variations in the devices, for both a 200 level MMC operating under staircase modulation, as well as for a 20 level MMC operating with pulsewidth modulation (PWM) This indicates that the application of conventional IGBT modules in high power MMCs is mainly constrained by the current switching capability and not by the power cycling lifetime.
author_names: Gilbert Bergna

Salvatore D'Arco

Jon Are Suul

Magnar Hernes
title: Analysis of power cycling for semiconductor devices in modular multilevel converters
venue: 2016 IEEE 17th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL)
year: 2016

abstract: In this article we investigate the different failure mechanisms in IGBT modules as a result of power cycling tests. The power cycling is carried out with different control strategies, such as constant current load, constant power and constant junction temperature. With the continuous monitoring of the tested device voltage, junction temperatures and periodic thermal transient tests, the crack of the wire bonds or even degradation of the die attach layer can be identified. A comparison between the effects of the studied control strategies on the lifetime of the tested device is also presented.
author_names: Zoltan Sarkany

Andras Vass-Varnai

Sandor Laky

Marta Rencz
title: Thermal transient analysis of semiconductor device degradation in power cycling reliability tests with variable control strategies
venue: 2014 Semiconductor Thermal Measurement and Management Symposium (SEMI THERM)
year: 2014

abstract: Power cycling in semiconductor modules contributes to repetitive thermal mechanical stresses, which in return accumulate as fatigue on the devices, and challenge the lifetime. Typically, lifetime models are expressed in number of cycles, within which the device can operate without failures under predefined conditions. In these lifetime models, thermal stresses (e.g. junction temperature variations) are commonly considered. However, the lifetime of power devices involves in cross disciplinary knowledge. As a result, the lifetime prediction is affected by the selected lifetime model. In this regard, this paper benchmarks the most commonly employed lifetime models of power semiconductor devices for offshore Modular Multilevel Converters (MMC) based wind farms. The benchmarking reveals that the lifetime model selection has a significant impact on the lifetime estimation. The use of analytical lifetime models should be justified in terms of applicability, limitations, and underlying statistical properties.
author_names: Yi Zhang

Huai Wang

Zhongxu Wang

Yongheng Yang

Frede Blaabjerg
title: Impact of lifetime model selections on the reliability prediction of IGBT modules in modular multilevel converters
venue: 2017 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)
year: 2017

abstract: The power semiconductor switches are the most unreliable devices in the Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion system. Thermal stress is the prime cause behind the power semiconductor switch failure mechanism, the selection of switching strategy and converter topology can have a notable effect on the converter reliability. This paper presents a lifetime comparison of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) modules in three classical multilevel inverter topologies on the basis of power cycling, thermal cycling, and lifetime performance. The electro thermal analysis has been implemented to identify the amplitude of the temperature swings and mean junction temperature. The Bayer lifetime model is used to evaluate the consumed lifetime of IGBT modules in the multilevel inverters based on the calculation method of numerical junction temperature. The accuracy in lifetime estimation has improved by considering the mission profile. The study shows that the IGBT modules in cascaded H bridge multilevel inverter have a higher lifetime when compared to the other two classical multilevel inverters
author_names: Ranjith Kumar Gatla

Wei Chen

Guo-rong Zhu

Junqun Wang

Sainadh Singh Kshatri
title: Lifetime comparison of IGBT modules in Grid connected Multilevel PV inverters Considering Mission Profile
venue: 2019 10th International Conference on Power Electronics and ECCE Asia (ICPE 2019 ECCE Asia)
year: 2019

abstract: Aluminium wires are widely used in power electronics modules to connect power semiconductor devices and other parts of the module electrically. Recently, other interconnect techniques have been proposed such as ribbon bond to improve the reliability, performance and reduce costs of power modules. The reliability of ribbon bond technique for an IGBT power module under power cycling is compared with that of conventional wire bond in this study using electro thermal nonlinear Finite Element Analysis. The results showed that a single ribbon of 2000mm x 200mm will replace three wire bonds of 400mm in diameter to achieve a similar module temperature distribution under same power load. Using the equivalent plastic strain increment per cycle, it is seen that the ribbon bond is more reliable than the wire bonds. The impact of neglecting joule heat in the wire/ribbon bonds during power cycling simulation has also been investigated.
author_names: Kenneth Chimezie Nwanoro

Hua Lu

Chunyan Yin

Chris Bailey
title: Computer simulation of the reliability of wire bonds and ribbon bonds in power electronics modules
venue: 2017 23rd International Workshop on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Systems (THERMINIC)
year: 2017