Ageing and Failure Modes of IGBT Modules in High-Temperature Power Cycling

TLDR

The study investigates how high‑temperature power cycling (60–90 °C baseplate, 60–100 °C swings) ages insulated‑gate bipolar transistor modules. The authors aged 19 600‑V 200‑A IGBT modules using five power‑cycling protocols on two test benches, monitoring electrical and thermal parameters and analyzing damage with acoustic scanning and SEM. Results show that ageing primarily damages wire bonds and emitter metallization, with severity increasing with harsher cycling protocols.

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on the ageing of insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) power modules. The aim is to identify the effects of power cycling on these devices with high baseplate temperatures (60 °C to 90 °C) and wide temperature swings (60 °C to 100 °C). These values for thermal stresses have been defined according to automotive applications. The test conditions are provided by two types of test benches that will be described in this paper. The changes in electrical and thermal indicators are observed regularly by a monitoring system. At the end of the test (reaching damage criterion or failure), different analyses are performed (acoustic scanning and SEM imaging), and the damage is listed systematically. Nineteen samples of 600-V 200-A IGBT modules were thus aged using five different power-cycling protocols. The final summary of results shows that ageing mechanisms mainly concern wire bonds and emitter metallization, with gradual impact depending on protocol severity.