Thermal and Structural Simulation Techniques for Estimating Fatigue Life of an IGBT Module

Author

Sasaki, Koji ; Iwasa, Naoko ; Kurosu, Toshiki ; Saito, Katsuaki ; Koike, Yoshihiko ; Kamita, Yukio ; Toyoda, Yasushi

Author_Institution

Mech. Eng. Res. Lab., Hitachi, Ltd., Hitachinaka

fYear

2008

Firstpage

181

Lastpage

184

Abstract

Two techniques, one for estimating fatigue life of aluminum bonding wires and one for estimating fatigue life of solders under repeated thermal load, were developed. In one method, fracture mechanics with strain intensity factor (DeltaK _epsiv) is used to estimate the fatigue life of aluminum bonding wires. In the other method, "electrical-thermal-structural coupled analysis" is used to estimate fatigue life of solders. The simulated crack propagation in aluminum bonding wires agrees well with the experimentally measured propagation. Moreover, the simulations show that fatigue life of aluminum bonding wires has a lower fatigue limit at a temperature-cycling range of 30degC.

Keywords

aluminium; bonding processes; fatigue cracks; fracture mechanics; insulated gate bipolar transistors; thermal analysis; wires; IGBT module; aluminum bonding wires; crack propagation simulation; electrical-thermal-structural coupled analysis; fatigue life estimation; fracture mechanics; strain intensity factor; structural simulation; thermal simulation; Aluminum; Bonding; Fatigue; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Life estimation; Life testing; Temperature distribution; Thermal engineering; Thermal stresses; Wires;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Semiconductor Devices and IC's, 2008. ISPSD '08. 20th International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1532-8

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1533-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISPSD.2008.4538928

Filename

4538928