Review of Power Semiconductor Device Reliability for Power Converters

Wang, Bo; Cai, Jie; Du, Xiong; Zhou, Luowei

doi:10.24295/cpsstpea.2017.00011

Cited by 107 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…The progressive failure mechanism of IGBT involves a combination of electrical, thermal, mechanical, and environmental factors [3][4][5]. During the life cycle of an IGBT module, the bonding wires and the solder layers are prone to aging and fatigue due to the thermo-mechanical fatigue stress experienced by the packaging materials, e.g., mismatch in the coefficients of thermal expansion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The electrical overstress (EOS) (overvoltage and/or overcurrent), electrostatic discharge (ESD), and the 2 of 14 thermal activation are the main causes of chip-related failure. Previous studies [4][5][6] show that about 60% of IGBT failures are caused by overheating or other thermal-related problems, such as thermal resistance increased due to damage in IGBT module, and the load fluctuations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The typical switching time of IGBT is about hundreds of nanoseconds and the value varies with load current, junction temperature, and other factors [17][18][19][20]. However, the change of IGBT switching time is very small [4,5] (range from several to tens of nanoseconds) when the health status of the IGBT module changes. Thus, a high-resolution of the IGBT switching time is required for the purpose of CM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanoseconds Switching Time Monitoring of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Module by Under-Sampling Reconstruction of High-Speed Switching Transitions Signal

Zhao

Yan

et al. 2019

Electronics

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An insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is one of the most reliable critical components in power electronics systems (PESs). The switching time during IGBT turn-on/off transitions is a good health status indicator for IGBT. However, online monitoring of IGBT switching time is still difficult in practice due to the requirement of extremely high sampling rate for nanoseconds time resolution. The compressed sensing (CS) method shows a potential to overcome the technical difficult by reducing the sampling rate. To further improve the efficiency and reduce the computational time for IGBT online condition monitoring (CM), an under-sampling reconstruction method of an IGBT high-speed switching signal is presented in this paper. First, the physical mechanism and signal characteristics of IGBT switching transitions are analyzed. Then, by utilizing the sparse characteristics of IGBT switching signal in the wavelet domain, the wavelet basis is used for sparse representation. The stagewise orthogonal matching pursuit (StOMP) algorithm is proposed to enhance the convergence speed for switching signal reconstruction. Experiments are performed on not only a double-pulse test rig but also a real Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) converter. Results show that the IGBT high-speed switching transitions signal can be accurately recovered with a reduced sampling rate and the nanoseconds switching time change can be monitored for IGBT CM.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Nanoseconds Switching Time Monitoring of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Module by Under-Sampling Reconstruction of High-Speed Switching Transitions Signal

Zhao

Yan

et al. 2019

Electronics

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show abstract

“…The increased number of semiconductor devices increases the risk of failure since the failure of a single device could cause the whole inverter to fail. Researchers have studied the reliability of power electronics to a great extent in an attempt to reduce the risk of failure and to increase the reliability of power electronic systems for distributed energy resources [6], [7]. The most common faults that may occur in MLIs are open and short circuit faults in power switches [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfiguration of NPC Multilevel Inverters to Mitigate Short Circuit Faults Using Back-to-Back Switches

2018

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“…However, this makes it more difficult to dissipate the heat compared to the conventional design where each die sits on the base plate. On the other side, for E-mode GaN HEMTs, since there is no wire and die attachment compared to the conventional wire bond process [6]- [12], the common failure regarding package, such as bond-wire cracks, lift-off and die attachment delamination won't be observed. Hence it is quite necessary to study the reliability of these newly developed devices [13].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Degradation of GaN HEMTs Under Accelerated Power Cycling Tests

Xu¹,

Yang²,

Uğur³

et al. 2018

CPSS TPEA

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In this paper, performance degradations of enhancement mode (E-mode) gallium nitride (GaN) high-electronmobility-transistors (HEMTs) under accelerated power cycling tests are presented. For this purpose, a DC power cycling setup is designed to accelerate the aging process in a realistic manner. In order to evaluate the aging-related parameter shifts and corresponding precursors, electrical parameters are periodically monitored through a high-end curve tracer. Both the cascode device and p-GaN gate GaN devices are evaluated during these tests. In the experimental results, it is observed that the onstate resistance gradually increases in both devices. Meanwhile, the threshold voltage of the p-GaN gate GaN device gradually increases over the aging cycles and a remarkable variation in the transfer characteristics is observed. At the end of the tests, failure analyses are conducted on both devices. The cascode GaN devices show both short and open circuit failure modes, and a weak point in the drain-side bond wires is detected. For the p-GaN gate GaN device, the electrical parameter shifts indicate a possible gate degradation after the device is aged. Index Terms-Aging precursor, failure analysis, failure mode, failure model, GaN device, power cycling. I. IntroductIon G ALLIUM nitride (GaN) devices are one of the most promising power devices in high frequency, high efficiency and high power density power conversions [1], [2]. Compared to Si and SiC counterparts, GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) exhibit a better figure of merit. The GaN HEMTs can be categorized into normally-on and normally-off devices [3]. Normally-on GaN device is less desirable in power converters due to its reliability concerns. For normally-off GaN devices, there are several methods to implement, including recessed Schottky gate, p-GaN gate, plasma treatment under the gate and cascode structure [4]. Among them, the cascode GaN and p-GaN gate GaN are mainly applied in commercially available GaN devices as shown in Fig. 1. Both these types of GaN devices show different characteristics from the conventional Si devices. For cascode GaN devices, there are two primary heat sources, i.e., the GaN HEMT

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Review of Power Semiconductor Device Reliability for Power Converters

Cited by 107 publications

References 70 publications

Nanoseconds Switching Time Monitoring of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Module by Under-Sampling Reconstruction of High-Speed Switching Transitions Signal

Nanoseconds Switching Time Monitoring of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Module by Under-Sampling Reconstruction of High-Speed Switching Transitions Signal

Reconfiguration of NPC Multilevel Inverters to Mitigate Short Circuit Faults Using Back-to-Back Switches

Performance Degradation of GaN HEMTs Under Accelerated Power Cycling Tests

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