Power-cycling of DMOS-switches triggers thermo-mechanical failure mechanisms

Smorodin, T.; Stecher, M.; Wilde, Jürgen; Glavanovics, Michael

doi:10.1109/essderc.2007.4430898

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The robustness of smart power switches against active thermal cycling stress, driven by large variations in power dissipation, has become a major concern in automotive applications over the last years [1], [2], [3]. Various approaches have been presented to define standard test procedures for cycling operating conditions, among them inductive switching [4], [5] and repetitive short circuit events [6].…”

Section: Representative Measurements Of Industry Standard High Currenmentioning

confidence: 99%

A compact high current system for short circuit testing of smart power switches according to AEC standard Q100-012

Glavanovics¹,

Sleik²,

Schreiber

2008

2008 IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference

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The short circuit robustness of smart power switches has become a major concern in automotive applications over the last years. This is reflected in a new extension to the AEC qualification standard Q100-12, where the basic requirements for short circuit testing of "smart" switches with integrated overcurrent protection are given. This paper describes the practical implementation of a compact test setup for the laboratory measurement of short circuit events with initial peak currents as high as 1000A at supply voltages up to 60V. The AEC standard further requires a low-ohmic test circuit with well-defined impedances. This is usually achieved by arrangement of a large DC power supply with discrete copper bus bars, massive test fixtures and solenoid type air coils to achieve well-defined resistance and inductance values. Our novel approach utilizes a compact printed circuit board arrangement instead, replacing large copper cross sections by short distances and optimized geometries to achieve the same performance at a fraction of the cost and space requirements.To protect the equipment from potential hazard of fire in case of a destructive device failure without sacrificing performance, fast overcurrent detection is required as well as shutdown and removal of energy from the tested device within microseconds. This can be achieved with low-cost offthe-shelf current sensors and surface-mounted MOSFET switches by careful consideration of their specified properties.Representative measurements of industry standard high current smart power switches show that the presented test equipment meets the requirements of Q100-12 for laboratory short circuit measurements.

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Section: Representative Measurements Of Industry Standard High Currenmentioning

confidence: 99%

A compact high current system for short circuit testing of smart power switches according to AEC standard Q100-012

Glavanovics¹,

Sleik²,

Schreiber

2008

2008 IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference

Self Cite

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“…The difference in the coefficient of thermal expansion between the aluminum and the interlayer dielectric results in thermo-mechanical stress, which causes failure, such as interlayer dielectric (ILD) cracks. 18,19) To reduce the process cost, there is an increasing demand for further shrinkage on DMOS. This causes a high power density on the chip.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reliability study of thermal cycling stress on smart power devices

Zhang

Yoshihisa

Furuya

et al. 2014

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys.

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In this paper, we describe a smart power device degradation behavior under thermal cycling stress. An innovative test structure was developed, which faithfully reflects a stress state caused by the smart power device during operation. From our experiment, the device degraded after millions of fast thermal cycling pulses. We discovered that via destruction was the cause of the device degradation. For the duration of thermal cycling stress, the via resistance increased gradually, and finally increased rapidly at the point of millions of cycles. A failure via was observed, which was broken into two parts. Therefore, the via disconnection was considered to be due to thermo-mechanical stress or electro-migration. Some experiments were conducted, and we demonstrated that the via destruction dominated to the thermo-mechanical stress introduced by the thermal cycling stress.

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