Investigation of Active Power Cycling Combined With Passive Thermal Cycles on Discrete Power Electronic Devices

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Otto ◽  
Sven Rzepka ◽  
Bernhard Wunderle

Active power cycling (APC) is a standardized and well-established method for reliability assessment and product qualification in power electronics (PEs) technologies. Repetitive pulses of load current are applied to cause cyclic thermal swings in the p–n junction and in the whole semiconductor device. They induce thermo-mechanical stresses, which ultimately leads to the typical interconnect failure in the “devices under test.” However, these tests are insensitive with respect to new automotive system architectures, in which PEs devices are exposed to additional loads besides the intrinsic thermal swings. The trends in PEs toward miniaturization, higher power density, heterogeneous system integration, and the deployment of PEs in harsher environments combined with longer lifetime and higher uptime requirements strongly increase the reliability demands in general and the need for more improved reliability assessment methodologies in particular. The new testing methods shall be more comprehensive and more efficient, i.e., they shall simultaneously cover the real service conditions better and reduce testing time. One promising approach is the combination of loading factors—such as the superposition of active power cycling by passive thermal cycles (TC). Both loading factors are well known to cause most relevant failure mechanisms in PEs. In reality, the PE devices are exposed to both factors simultaneously. Hence, this load case should also be replicated in the test. The paper will report a systematic investigation of such superimposed test schemes, which cover the case of self-heating and passive heating (from neighboring elements) of the PEs devices under real service conditions. Typical discrete PEs components in TO-200 packages are selected as test vehicles as they are likewise relevant for the domains of consumer or automotive electronics. The paper details the test concept and discusses the quantitative and qualitative test results.

Author(s):  
Alexander Otto ◽  
Sven Rzepka ◽  
Bernhard Wunderle

Active power cycling is a standardized and well-established method for reliability assessment and product qualification in power electronics technologies. Repetitive pulses of load current are applied to cause cyclic thermal swings in the p-n junction and in the whole semiconductor device. They induce thermo-mechanical stresses, which ultimately leads to the typical interconnect failure in the ‘devices under test’. However, these tests are insensitive with respect to new automotive system architectures, in which power electronics devices are exposed to additional loads besides the intrinsic thermal swings. The trends in power electronics towards miniaturization, higher power density, heterogeneous system integration, and the deployment of power electronics in harsher environments combined with longer lifetime and higher uptime requirements strongly increase the reliability demands in general and the need for more improved reliability assessment methodologies in particular. The new testing methods shall be more comprehensive and more efficient, i.e., they shall simultaneously cover the real service conditions better and reduce testing time. One promising approach is the combination of loading factors — such as the superposition of active power cycling by passive thermal cycles. Both loading factors are well-known to cause most relevant failure mechanisms in power electronics. In reality, the power electronic devices are exposed to both factors simultaneously. Hence, this load case should also be replicated in the test. The paper will report a systematic investigation of such superimposed test schemes, which cover the case of self-heating and passive heating (from neighboring elements) of the power electronics devices under real service conditions. Typical discrete power electronics components in TO-200 packages are selected as test vehicles as they are likewise relevant for the domains of consumer or automotive electronics. The paper details the test concept and discuss the quantitative and qualitative test results.


2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (9-11) ◽  
pp. 1697-1702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amadou Sow ◽  
Sinivassane Somaya ◽  
Yves Ousten ◽  
Jean-Michel Vinassa ◽  
Fanny Patoureaux

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 2661-2675
Author(s):  
Sebastian Baba ◽  
Andrzej Gieraltowski ◽  
Marek Jasinski ◽  
Frede Blaabjerg ◽  
Amir Sajjad Bahman ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuya Okamoto

ABSTRACTMicro-fabrication technology for LSI devices has been progressing technically over time. However, the scenario of continuing to produce ever-finer feature geometries has a low probability. Resolution capabilities will reach a critical limit due to conventional CMOS performance threshold and chip economy. Therefore, to assure continued performance improvements for future devices, front-end fabricators should consider a new 3 dimensional structure (3D-LSI) using a “Through-Si-Via” process. At the same time, the definition of the semiconductor device should be updated to “System & Design Integration (S&DI).” S&DI will provide the needed feedback to launch a new field of clear applications, based on a total system solution with innovative design, fabrication, inspection and evaluation equipment. 3D-LSI and S&DI will have a tremendous impact on the future electronics industries.


EPE Journal ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 12-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Januszewski ◽  
Maria Kociszewska-Szczerbik ◽  
Henryk Swiaiek ◽  
Grzegorz Swiatek

Author(s):  
Shinji Inoue ◽  
Shigeru Yamada

We discuss software reliability modeling reflecting actual situation in a testing phase based on a Markovian software reliability modeling framework. Concretely, we discuss Markovian imperfect debugging modeling for software reliability assessment with multiple changes of testing environment. Testing-time changing the testing environment is called change-point. Taking into account the effect of change-point in software reliability growth modeling is expected to improve the accuracy of software reliability assessment because it is often observed that the stochastic characteristic of software failure-occurrence or fault-detection phenomenon is changed in an actual testing phase. Numerical examples for software reliability assessment based on our proposed approach are also shown by using actual software failure-occurrence time data. Further, we discuss the usefulness of considering the effect of the imperfect debugging and the multiple change-point into software reliability modeling by comparing the estimated behavior of the mean time between software failures based on our model and the existing related models.


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