iNEMI project on automotive electronic material challenges

Automobiles are incorporating more and more electronics from various industry sectors that have not been optimally designed for use inside the vehicle passenger compartment. Reliability and cost are two key considerations when incorporating traditional consumer electronics and military grade electronics for use in automotive applications. The drive for miniaturization coupled with automotive reliability expectations requires better understanding of material properties beyond standard bulk analysis. Long term reliability predictions require a basic understanding of how materials will fail under certain conditions. To date, the harsh automotive environmental conditions have not been translated to physical properties of material at the microscopic scale. Material failure physics is primarily only understood at the bulk level as opposed to performance at interfaces or other small geometrical structures used in automotive electronics. The opportunity in this project is to predict and understand functional performance of small geometries in harsh environments through measurement of material and interface properties. Conducting system level testing for every material and design can delay implementation and increase cost of new technologies, therefore a predictive methodology will be valuable to the industry. An iNEMI Automotive Materials project has been initiated to measure functional performance of small geometries through understanding a combination of material properties and interface properties. The end goal is to have the necessary information to predict reliability of technology to reduce design cycles. This would optimize reliability and reduce costs for the industry as a whole. Project participants will lend expertise in identifying the dominant failure mechanisms of commonly used materials and components. Using this information, the team will prioritize key properties for predictive modeling of reliability and performance. The appropriate tests and test methodol- gies for small geometries and relevant interface properties will be identified. Recommendations for developing test methods may result in follow-on projects. This presentation will discuss the dominant failure mechanisms in automotive electronics for selected components and materials. The correlation of material properties to specific environmental conditions will be analyzed. Gaps between standard consumer electronic test methods and typical automotive test conditions will be identified. The team´s methodology for analysis will be presented.