Advanced power cycling test for power module with on-line on-state VCE measurement

Recent research has made an effort to improve the reliability of power electronic systems to comply with more stringent constraints on cost, safety, predicted lifetime and availability in many applications. For this, studies about failure mechanisms of power electronic components and lifetime estimation of power semiconductor devices and capacitors have been done. Accelerated power cycling test is one of the common tests to assess the power device module and develop the lifetime model considering the physics of failure. In this paper, a new advanced power cycling test setup is proposed for power module. The proposed concept can perform various stress conditions which is valid in a real mission profile and it is using a real power converter application with small loss. The concept of the proposed test setup is first presented. Then, the on-line on-state collector-emitter voltage V_CE measurement for condition monitoring of the test device is discussed. Finally, a characterization method of test device regarding on-state V_CE for junction temperature estimation is proposed. The experimental results of the prototype confirm the validity and the effectiveness of proposed test setup.