Avoiding misleading artefacts in metallurgical preparation of die attach solder joints in high power modules

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (9-11) ◽  
pp. 1403-1408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franc Dugal ◽  
Mauro Ciappa
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (DPC) ◽  
pp. 001717-001743
Author(s):  
Lars Boettcher ◽  
S. Karaszkiewicz ◽  
D. Manessis ◽  
A. Ostmann

The automotive industry has a strong demand for highly reliable and cost-efficient electronics. Especially the upcoming generations of hybrid cars and fully electrical vehicles need compact and efficient 400 V power modules. Within the engine compartment installation space is of major concern. Therefore small size and high integration level of the modules are needed. Conventionally IGBTs and diodes are soldered to DCB (Direct Copper Bond) ceramics substrates and their top contacts are connected by heavy Al wire bonds. These ceramic modules are vacuum soldered to water-cooled base plates. Embedding of power switches, and controller into compact modules using PCB (Printed Circuit Board) technologies offers the potential to further improve the thermal management by double-sided cooling and to reduce the thickness of the module. In the recently started “HI-LEVEL” (Integration of Power Electronics in in High Current PCBs for Electric Vehicle Application) project, partners from automotive, automotive supplier, material supplier, PCB manufacturer and research teamed up to develop the technology, components and materials to realize high power modules. The following topics of the development will be addressed in detail in this paper:Assemble of power dies (IGBT and diode) using new sinter die attach materials:The deployment of new no pressure, low temperature sinter paste for the assembly of the power dies is a mayor development goal. Here the development of a reliable process to realize a defect free bonding of large IGBT dies (up to 10x14mm2) is essentially. These pastes are applied by stencil printing or dispensing and the sintering will take place after die placement at temperatures of around 200 °C.Thick copper substrate technology:To handle the high switching current, suitable copper tracks in the PCB are required. The realization of such thick copper lines (up to 1mm thickness) requires advanced processing, compared to conventional multilayer PCB production. In this paper the essential development steps towards a 10 kW inverter module with embedded components will be described. The process steps and reliability investigations of the different interconnect levels will be described in detail.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Li ◽  
Xu Chen ◽  
Guo-Quan Lu

As a solid electroluminescent source, white light emitting diode (LED) has entered a practical stage and become an alternative to replace incandescent and fluorescent light sources. However, due to the increasing integration and miniaturization of LED chips, heat flux inside the chip is also increasing, which puts the packaging into the position to meet higher requirements of heat dissipation. In this study, a new interconnection material—nanosilver paste is used for the LED chip packaging to pursue a better optical performance, since high thermal conductivity of this material can help improve the efficiency of heat dissipation for the LED chip. The bonding ability of this new die-attach material is evaluated by their bonding strength. Moreover, high-power LED modules connected with nanosilver paste, Sn3Ag0.5Cu solder, and silver epoxy are aged under hygrothermal aging and temperature cycling tests. The performances of these LED modules are tested at different aging time. The results show that LED modules sintered with nanosilver paste have the best performance and stability.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitsuaki Kato ◽  
Takahiro Omori ◽  
Akihiro Goryu ◽  
Tomoya Fumikura ◽  
Kenji Hirohata

Author(s):  
Erick Gutierrez ◽  
Kevin Lin ◽  
Douglas DeVoto ◽  
Patrick McCluskey

Abstract Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) power modules are devices commonly used for high-power applications. Operation and environmental stresses can cause these power modules to progressively degrade over time, potentially leading to catastrophic failure of the device. This degradation process may cause some early performance symptoms related to the state of health of the power module, making it possible to detect reliability degradation of the IGBT module. Testing can be used to accelerate this process, permitting a rapid determination of whether specific declines in device reliability can be characterized. In this study, thermal cycling was conducted on multiple power modules simultaneously in order to assess the effect of thermal cycling on the degradation of the power module. In-situ monitoring of temperature was performed from inside each power module using high temperature thermocouples. Device imaging and characterization were performed along with temperature data analysis, to assess failure modes and mechanisms within the power modules. While the experiment aimed to assess the potential damage effects of thermal cycling on the die attach, results indicated that wire bond degradation was the life-limiting failure mechanism.


Author(s):  
Sri Krishna Bhogaraju ◽  
Hiren R. Kotadia ◽  
Fosca Conti ◽  
Armin Mauser ◽  
Thomas Rubenbauer ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Mitsuaki Kato ◽  
Takahiro Omori ◽  
Akihiro Goryu ◽  
Tomoya Fumikura ◽  
Kenji Hirohata

Abstract Power modules are being developed to increase power output. The larger current densities accompanying increased power output are expected to degrade solder joints in power modules by electromigration. In previous research, numerical analysis of solder for electromigration has mainly examined ball grid arrays in flip-chip packages in which many solder balls are bonded under the semiconductor device. However, in a power module, a single solder joint is uniformly bonded under the power device. Because of this difference in geometric shape, the effect of electromigration in the solder of power modules may be significantly different from that in the solder of flip chips packages. This report describes an electromigration analysis of solder joints for power modules using an electrical-thermal-stress coupled analysis. First, we validate our numerical implementation and show that it can reproduce the vacancy concentrations and hydrostatic stress almost the same as the analytical solutions. We then simulate a single solder joint to evaluate electromigration in a solder joint in a power module. Once inelastic strain appears, the rate of increase in vacancy concentration slows, while the inelastic strain continuously increases. This phenomenon demonstrates that elastic-plastic-creep analysis is crucial for electromigration analysis of solder joints in power modules. Next, the solder joint with a power device and a substrate as used in power modules was simulated. Plasticity-creep and longitudinal gradient generated by current crowding have a strong effect on significantly reducing the vacancy concentration at the anode edge over a long period of time.


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