Acoustic emission caused by the failure of a power transistor

Abstract

The authors show for the first time that acoustic events are related to the failure of transistors. An experimental setup is presented, that was used to make a sample of 26 insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) to fail. The acoustic events in the transistors were monitored. It was discovered that two distinct types of acoustic events are related to the failure. This study complements recent work where it was shown that the switching operation of power transistors causes acoustic emissions to take place.