Modern IGBT gate driving methods for enhancing reliability of high-power converters — An overview

This paper presents a survey of existing gate driving approaches for improving reliability of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs). An extensive and various lists of techniques are introduced and discussed, including fast detection, identification and protection against IGBT failures, also considering cost-effective solutions. Gate-driver circuit solutions to improve short-circuit robustness, overload, voltage and current overshoots withstanding capability are first introduced to cope with abnormal conditions severely affecting lifetime expectation. Later, some advanced, state-of-the-art control techniques are discussed to minimize the real-mission-profile stresses in terms of voltage and current stresses to the device, together with, not least, temperature variations. Future challenges and perspectives are finally discussed at the end of the paper.     

Indoor field strength prediction based on FMM

1 Introduction With the popularization of personal communication service (PCS), indoor radio propagation has attracted more attention, especially for ultra-wideband (UWB) signals. Ultra-wideband communication systems have very high data rates (at least 10…     

Early degradation of high power packaged LEDs under humid conditions and its recovery — Myth of reliability rejuvenation

A sharp rise in lumen degradation was observed for packaged high power LEDs during the initial period of operation under high humidity and temperature conditions, and the degradation reaches a peak value, followed by a “recovery” in lumen output, a sign of reliability rejuvenation. The time to reach the peak degradation is shorter with higher relative humidity. Scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) tomography is employed to study the effect of moisture at different time intervals. With the help of moisture diffusion modeling using ANSYS simulation, the phenomenon is found to be due to the increasing moisture absorption of silicone resulting in subsequent light scattering as light is emitting from the dice. The “recovery” is the result of moisture absorption by die attach material that sucks the moisture from the silicone. Thus the “recovery” of lumen degradation is actually associated with the degradation in the internal structure of the LED package which is not reversible. C-SAM results are in accordance with the simulation and experimental results. The implication of this finding on temperature–humidity test of high power LEDs is described, and the material parameters of silicone to reduce this initial degradation are also presented.     

High-κ related reliability issues in advanced non-volatile memories

In the last decade, important technology solutions have been proposed to scale down Flash memory devices beyond the 30 nm node. The most important innovations are the introduction of charge trapping layer and high-κ materials in both bottom and top dielectric stacks. Such innovations allow reducing both the bottom dielectric thickness and the Program/Erase (P/E) voltages, while maintaining the P/E performances without degrading (theoretically) the memory device reliability. Theoretical advantages and reliability issues of these important innovations will be reviewed by addressing physical mechanisms responsible of reliability degradation. In particular, the reliability consequences of the discrete charge storage and of the high-κ band-gap engineered barriers bottom and top dielectric stacks will be carefully analyzed, relating high-κ material properties to memory device performances and reliability.     

Systems-in-foil – Devices,fabrication processes and reliability issues

Systems-in-foil are a new class of electronics in which a full system is integrated into a flexible end product. In this paper, we discuss current research activities and state-of-the-art in this field. Furthermore, some of the associated and expected reliability issues will be addressed on the basis of three examples. As a first example we discuss a flexible large area polymeric organic light-emitting (OLED) device. The reliability targets of these devices require protection against the detrimental influence of water. As a second example, we describe a technology for embedding thinned Si chips between polymeric foils where a careful selection of the base materials is important to account for thermal expansion differences. Finally, as a third example, a novel technology for embedding conductive circuitry in a polymeric foil is discussed in which a good matching of the elastic moduli of the polymeric foil and the embedded circuitry is crucial for the flexibility robustness.     

Developing the stress–strain curve to failure using mesoscale models parameterized from molecular models

Developing the stress response using the molecular and mesoscale levels is fairly reliable during the initial strain. For instance, modulus is a property that can be established using these techniques and the continuity of scale between the molecular and mesoscale and agreement with experiment suggests that both may be used to establish modulus for parameterizing a macroscale model when measured properties are unavailable. However, the latter part of the stress–strain response that helps to establish ties to crack propagation still needs attention. One problem that was previously found in the mesoscale models was questionable lack of void formation in crosslinked systems due to superficially clean adhesive separation in the simulations. One way to overcome this lack of voiding was to determine how to develop bond breakage criterion that would allow surfaces to develop. This paper discusses development and application of bond breakage on a mesoscale level (which uses a bead-bond breakage criterion so does not explicitly define which bond is broken), and the impact on the simulated stress–strain curves using mesoscale models.     

Probabilistic analysis of micro-machined fixed?fixed beam for reliability

A realistic approach for modelling a fixed?fixed beam is presented. The use of probabilistic methods to assess the electromechanical behaviour of the beam under the presence of micro-machine manufacturing and process uncertainties is demonstrated. A finite-element model of the beam is constructed using the commercial code ANSYS (10.0). In the standard approach of modelling, existing literature assumes deterministic values for design parameters, however, fabrication of the device introduces some amount of variation in the design parameters. Here, the probabilistic approach is discussed to account for the variability in fabrication. Probabilistic analysis guides the design of the fixed?fixed beam to achieve a robust and reliable design in the most efficient way. The results of the probabilistic design approach on the performance characteristics such as maximum deflection and maximum stress will be discussed.     

Three-step concept (TSC) in modeling microelectronics reliability (MR): Boltzmann–Arrhenius–Zhurkov (BAZ) probabilistic physics-of-failure equation sandwiched between two statistical models

When encountering a particular reliability problem at the design, fabrication, testing, or an operation stage of a product’s life, and considering the use of predictive modeling to assess the seriousness and the likely consequences of the a detected failure, one has to choose whether a statistical, or a physics-of-failure-based, or a suitable combination of these two major modeling tools should be employed to address the problem of interest and to decide on how to proceed. A three-step concept (TSC) is suggested as a possible way to go in such a situation. The classical statistical Bayes’ formula can be used at the first step in this concept as a technical diagnostics tool. Its objective is to identify, on the probabilistic basis, the faulty (malfunctioning) device(s) from the obtained signals (“symptoms of faults”). The recently suggested physics-of-failure-based Boltzmann–Arrhenius–Zhurkov’s (BAZ) model and particularly the multi-parametric BAZ model can be employed at the second step to assess the remaining useful life (RUL) of the faulty device(s). If the RUL is still long enough, no action might be needed; if it is not, corrective restoration action becomes necessary. In any event, after the first two steps are carried out, the device is put back into operation (testing), provided that the assessed probability of its continuing failure-free operation is found to be satisfactory. If the operational failure nonetheless occurs, the third, technical diagnostics step should be undertaken to update reliability. Statistical beta-distribution, in which the probability of failure is treated as a random variable, is suggested to be used at this step. While various statistical methods and approaches, including Bayes’ formula and beta-distribution, are well known and widely used in numerous applications for many decades, the BAZ model was introduced in the microelectronics reliability (MR) area only several years ago. Its attributes are addressed and discussed therefore in some detail. The suggested concept is illustrated by a numerical example geared to the use of the prognostics-and-health-monitoring (PHM) effort in actual operation, such as, e.g., en-route flight mission.     

Compression Stress–Strain Behavior of Sn-Ag-Cu Solders

New Pb-free alloys that are variations of the Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) ternary system, having reduced Ag content, are being developed to address the poor shock load survivability of current SAC305, SAC396, and SAC405 compositions. However, the thermal mechanical fatigue properties must be determined for the new alloys in order to develop constitutive models for predicting solder joint fatigue. A long-term study was initiated to investigate the time-independent (stress–strain) and time-dependent (creep) deformation properties of the alloy 98.5Sn-1.0Ag-0.5Cu (wt.% SAC105). The compression stress–strain properties, which are reported herein, were obtained for the solder in as-cast and aged conditions. The test temperatures were −25°C, 25°C, 75°C, 125°C, and 160°C and the strain rates were 4.2 × 10⁻⁵ s⁻¹ and 8.3 × 10⁻⁴ s⁻¹. The SAC105 performance was compared with that of the 95.5Sn-3.9Ag-0.6Cu (SAC396) solder. Like the SAC396 solder, the SAC105 microstructure exhibited only small microstructural changes after deformation. The stress–strain curves showed work-hardening behavior that diminished with increased temperature to a degree that indicated dynamic recrystallization activity. The aging treatment had a small effect on the stress–strain curves, increasing the degree of work hardening. The yield stresses of SAC105 were significantly less than those of SAC396. The aging treatment caused a small drop in yield stress, as is observed with the SAC396 material. The static modulus values of SAC105 were lower than those of SAC396 and exhibited both temperature and aging treatment dependencies that differed from those of the SAC396 material. These trends clearly show that the stress–strain behavior of Sn-Ag-Cu solders is sensitive to the specific, individual composition.     

Nonlinear Recording Holography Capable of Doubly Increasing Stress Pattern

When recording a hologram,we should control the.exposure amount which is in nonlinear area of the characteristic curve of complex amplitude transmittance τ～exposure H,the hologram can diffeact some higher-order diffracted photograph.The amount of diffracted order has something to do with the recording angle between object beam and reference beam,is concerned with the ship of transmission curve.The phase difference.If the phase difference increased a time,the number of diffracted fringes also increased a time,it is similar to a fringe multipler,that it is obvious to in-crease the precision of interferometry.Nonlinear recording of double exposure method is discussed,and the formula of intensity distribution of second order diffracted photogra-phy,and experimental results are given.     

德国E+H MX2012 Automatic Wafer Stress Gauge

<正>德国的E+H公司(Eichhorn+Hausmann)为一世界级的专业半导体量测仪器设备制造商,以其30年的经验与独特的专业技术,致力于各种高精密性非接触式硅片测厚仪器的研发与制造。E+H之量测仪使用多点电容非接触式传感器,可量测硅片的翘曲度及薄膜应力(Stress),并同时提供硅片的Thick-     

FIFA: A fault-injection–fault-analysis-based tool for reliability assessment at RTL level

This paper presents an efficient platform for fault robustness estimation of digital circuits. The proposed platform, named FIFA, was designed as a hardware IP to accelerate the Fault Injection and Fault masking Analysis approach. It supports several fault models as well as single and multiple faults. Synthesis results have shown that the proposed platform can exceed those existent in the literature in terms of area efficiency and performance. In addition, the FIFA platform allows the designer to control complexity and completeness of the analysis process.     

Advanced thermal failure analysis and reliability investigations – Industrial demands and related limitations

The thermal interaction between actively operated integrated circuits and applied characterization tools is one of the most important ones within failure analysis (FA) and reliability/methodology (RM) investigations. Hereby different kind of thermal interaction mechanisms can be utilized, whereas these mechanisms have to be separated for instance into classes with respect to thermal excitation and/or detection, spatial limitations, and underlying physical principle. Although they all have in common the capability to link the thermo-electric device characteristic to a representing output signal, they have to be interpreted in completely different ways. Therefore, within this paper we discuss from a practical engineering point of view established FA/RM characterization techniques by means of infrared-lock in thermography (IR-LIT) and thermal induced voltage alteration (TIVA) case studies as well as the capability of non established ones like scanning thermal microscopy (SThM), thermal reflectance microscopy (TRM), and time domain thermal reflectance (TDTR). Hereby we focus on the complementarities of the methods for localization and characterization as well as on the according industrial demands and related limitations.     

Incremental demand rerouting: optimization models and algorithms

This investigation addresses an important and difficult combinatorial optimization problem in the design and management of telecommunication systems known as the path assignment problem. The path assignment problem is specified by a set of demands on a network with given link capacities. Each demand must be assigned to exactly one routing path in such a way that the total amount of traffic routed over any link does not exceed that link’s capacity. Given a network and a path assignment, the problem of interest is to maximize the available bandwidth (throughput) for a new demand. Network managers are concerned with the quality of service provided by their networks, and so they are reluctant to make major changes to an operating network that may inadvertently result in service disruptions for numerous clients simultaneously. Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to develop and test optimization models and algorithms that produce a series of throughput-improving modifications to the original path assignment. This allows network managers to implement the improved routing in stages with minimal changes to the overall routing plan between any two consecutive stages. Although the procedure may only reroute a few demands at each stage, the routing after the last stage should be as close as possible to an optimal routing. That is, it must maximize the throughput for the new demand. We present integer programming models and associated solution algorithms to maximize the throughput with a sequence of incremental path modifications. The algorithms were implemented with the AMPL modeling language and the CPLEX ILP solver, and tested on a family of five different data sets based on a European network widely studied in the literature. Empirical results show that the incremental approach finds near-optimal results within reasonable limits on CPU time.     

Learning landmark salience models from users’ route instructions

Route instructions for pedestrians are usually better understood if they include references to landmarks, and moreover, these landmarks should be as salient as possible. In this paper, we present an approach for automatically deriving a mathematical model of salience directly from route instructions given by humans. Each possible landmark that a person can refer to in a given situation is modelled as a feature vector, and the salience associated with each landmark can be computed as a weighted sum of these features. We use a ranking SVM method to derive the weights from route instructions given by humans as they are walking the route. The weight vector, representing the person’s personal salience model, determines which landmark(s) are most appropriate to refer to in new situations.     

Stress–Strain Characteristics of Tin-Based Solder Alloys for Drop-Impact Modeling

The stress–strain properties of eutectic Sn-Pb and lead-free solders at strain rates between 0.1 s⁻¹ and 300 s⁻¹ are required to support finite-element modeling of the solder joints during board-level mechanical shock and product-level drop-impact testing. However, there is very limited data in this range because this is beyond the limit of conventional mechanical testing and below the limit of the split Hopkinson pressure bar test method. In this paper, a specialized drop-weight test was developed and, together with a conventional mechanical tester, the true stress–strain properties of four solder alloys (63Sn-37Pb, Sn-1.0Ag-0.1Cu, Sn-3.5Ag, and Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu) were generated for strain rates in the range from 0.005 s⁻¹ to 300 s⁻¹. The sensitivity of the solders was found to be independent of strain level but to increase with increased strain rate. The Sn-3.5Ag and the Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu solders exhibited not only higher flow stress at relatively low strain rate but, compared to Sn-37Pb, both also exhibited higher rate sensitivity that contributes to the weakness of these two lead-free solder joints when subjected to drop impact loading.     

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Wireless Personal Communications - Ever since the branching of the sustainable and circular literature on business models of the late 2000s and early 2010´s, academia´s, businesses and...     

Experimental evaluation of SnAgCu solder joint reliability in 100-μm pitch flip-chip assemblies

The intermetallic compound (IMC) evolution and the thermal–mechanical reliability of Sn–3.0Ag–0.5Cu (SAC305) solder joints were studied using air-to-air thermal shock testing of 100-μm-pitch peripheral-row flip chip assemblies. Flip chips assembled on organic substrates were subjected to air-to-air thermal shock testing between −55 °C and 125 °C, and the samples were removed at regular intervals for cross-sectioning and failure analysis. It was seen that on the die side, after 2000 cycles, all of the (Cu,Ni)₃Sn₄ had transferred to (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ due to strong cross-pad interaction between the chip-side Ni pad and substrate-side Cu pad, and thus, there was no premature solder cracking possibly due to the absence of dual IMC structure. On the substrate-side Cu interface, the Cu₃Sn growth was hindered, and thus there was very little increase in Kirkendall voids in the Cu₃Sn after 2000 cycles. Therefore, there was no premature brittle failure in the intermetallic. Failure analysis shows that the cracks in the outermost corner solder joint started to form after 2000 cycles near the chip-side pad, and the cracks propagated in the solder matrix around the IMC like a ring to create solder open. From the experimental data, crack propagation rate equation parameters and characteristic mean life were determined.