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In order to take the full advantage of the high-temperature SiC and GaN operating devices, package materials able to withstand high-temperature storage and large thermal cycles have been investigated. The temperature under consideration here are higher than 200 °C. Such temperatures are required for several potential applications such as down-hole oil and gas industry for well logging, aircrafts, automotive, and space exploration. This review focuses on the reliability of a selection of potential components or materials used in the package assembly as the substrates, the die attaches, the interconnections, and the encapsulation materials. It reveals that, substrates with low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) conductors or with higher fracture resistant ceramics are potential candidates for high temperatures. Die attaches and interconnections reliable solutions are also available with the use of compatible metallization schemes. At this level, the reliability can also be improved by reducing the CTE mismatch between assembled materials. The encapsulation remains the most limiting packaging component since hard materials present thermomechanical reliability issues, while soft materials have low degradation temperatures. The review allows identifying reliable components and materials for high-temperature wide bandgap semiconductors and is expected to be very useful for researchers working for the development on high-temperature electronics.

Survey of High-Temperature Reliability of Power Electronics Packaging Components

Wide bandgap (WBG) device-based power electronics converters are more efficient and lightweight than silicon-based converters. WBG devices are an enabling technology for many motor drive applications and new classes of compact and efficient motors. This paper reviews the potential applications and advances enabled by WBG devices in ac motor drives. Industrial motor drive products using WBG devices are reviewed, and the benefits are highlighted. This paper also discusses the technical challenges, converter design considerations, and design tradeoffs in realizing the full potential of WBG devices in motor drives. There is a tradeoff between high switching frequency and other issues such as high dv/dt and electromagnetic interference. The problems of high common mode currents and bearing and insulation damage, which are caused by high dv/dt , and the reliability of WBG devices are discussed.

Wide Bandgap Devices in AC Electric Drives: Opportunities and Challenges

Silicon-Carbide (SiC) devices with superior performance over traditional silicon power devices have become the prime candidates for future high-performance power electronics energy conversion. Traditional device packaging becomes a limiting factor in fully realizing the benefits offered by SiC power devices, and thus, improved and advanced packaging structures are required to bridge the gap between SiC devices and their applications. This paper provides a review of the state-of-art advanced module packaging technologies for SiC devices with the focuses on module layout, packaging material system, and module integration trend, and links these packaging advancements to their impacts on the SiC device performances. Through this review, the paper discusses main challenges and potential solutions for SiC modules, which is critical for future SiC applications.

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A review of SiC power module packaging: Layout, material system and integration

Power module packaging technologies have been experiencing extensive changes as the novel silicon carbide (SiC) power devices with superior performance become commercially available. This article presents an overview of power module packaging technologies in this transition, with an emphasis on the challenges that current standard packaging face, requirements that future power module packaging needs to fulfill, and recent advances on packaging technologies. The standard power module structure, which is a widely used current practice to package SiC devices, is reviewed, and the reasons why novel packaging technologies should be developed are described in this article. The packaging challenges associated with high-speed switching, thermal management, high-temperature operation, and high-voltage isolation are explained in detail. Recent advances on technologies, which try to address the limitations of standard packaging, both in packaging elements and package structure are summarized. The trend toward novel soft-switching power converters gave rise to problems regarding package designs of unconventional module configuration. Potential applications areas, such as aerospace applications, introduce low-temperature challenges to SiC packaging. Key issues in these emerging areas are highlighted.

A Review of SiC Power Module Packaging Technologies: Challenges, Advances, and Emerging Issues

Soldering has been the main die attach technology for several decades. Recently, in order to meet the high temperature electronic requirements (high temperature-operating SiC and GaN devices) as well as the health recommendations (replacing the toxic lead present in common solder alloys with lead-free alternatives), several new attach technologies have been developed. Among others, the sintering of nano-silver particles seems to be one of the most interesting choices, and has been extensively investigated during recent years. The emergence of this technology is mainly due to the desired high electrical and high thermal conductivities of the sintered joint, its low elastic modulus offering a good thermo-mechanical reliability, its low process temperature, and its high operating temperature. In this paper, a review of parameters affecting the initial shear strength of the sintered silver joint will be summarized as well as the high temperature long-term reliability issues. The sintering cycle (bonding pressure, bonding temperature, sintering dwell time, heating rate, and the sintering atmosphere), the joint size, and the attached materials properties (nature, roughness), are found to closely affect the initially measured shear strength of the joint. The long-term reliability of the joint has been shown to suffer initially from three phenomena: the silver electro-migration, the decrease of shear strength under harsh thermo-mechanical stresses, and the swelling of the sintered layer. While the latter phenomenon is observed during the storage at temperatures above 350°C, the electro-migration and thermo-mechanical stresses can influence the package reliability at temperatures as low as 250°C. However, some suggested precautions during the module fabrication can lead to the minimizing of the effects of these phenomena and the achievem a more reliable joint.

Review on Joint Shear Strength of Nano-Silver Paste and Its Long-Term High Temperature Reliability

High-temperature power electronics represent an increasing demand. Higher power density or severe ambient temperature applications become the trend, while silicon carbide components with 250-300 °C Tjmax are emerging. Among materials used in high-voltage power module, soft encapsulants play a significant role in improving both semiconductor die and module package voltage ratings, especially under enhanced electrical and thermal constraints. In operation close to their upper temperature limit, two silicone materials were selected among the most thermally stable soft insulators available today. Up to 300 °C, dielectric properties and their stability under isothermal aging in air ambient tests were characterized. The gel, tested using sandwich structures, exhibits cracking of its exposed-to-air face, at an aging temperature as low as 250 °C after less than 100 h. The elastomer, tested as free films, presents no cracking, no degraded electrical characteristics, and a 6 % relative mass loss, after 500 h aging. Moreover, the elastomer insulating properties, at low and high electric field, remains stable up to 300 °C (short-term tests), contrary to the gel which shows a strong increase in dc electrical conductivity. So the elastomer shows promising properties for improved encapsulation performance at 250 °C, to be further investigated in package configurations.

Evaluation of Encapsulation Materials for High-Temperature Power Device Packaging

Recent aircraft designs increasingly use electrical systems with higher voltages. This can lead to the occurrence of partial discharges. Testing for these phenomena is relatively poorly documented in comparison with other standardized tests available for aerospace components. After having investigated the effect of temperature, pressure, and moisture on the partial discharge inception voltage as well as the discharge characteristics, we focused on the effect of these environmental parameters on the behaviour of the energy dissipated by the discharges and on polyimide film endurance during aging under partial discharge. The results show two different behaviours for the variation of energy dissipation along aging time related to environmental conditions. In fact, when a semi-conducting layer is formed in wet conditions due to the interaction between the gaseous by-products and the water molecules, a decrease in the energy measured was revealed. In addition, the relationship between the measured dissipated energy and the polyimide lifetime was investigated and did not present constant trends for the different aging conditions. While it is clear that the material endurance was energy dependent in dry conditions, it was shown that, even when the discharge energies were higher, an increase in the endurance of the dielectric was observed when the superficial semi-conducting layer was formed.

Polyimide lifetime under partial discharge aging: effects of temperature, pressure and humidity

Dielectric spectroscopy of a high-temperature photosensitive polyimide was investigated in wide temperature and frequency ranges during heating and cooling cycles (from −150 to 370 ◦ C and from 0.1 to 1 MHz). During the heating phase measurements two sub-glass relaxation processes were observed, noted as γ and β relaxations. The γ relaxation appears at a low temperature (around −60 ◦ C at 1 kHz) with an activation energy of 0.44 eV during the heating phase and disappears during the cooling one, indicating that the peak is initially related to the presence of water in the polyimide films. The β relaxation appears at higher temperatures (around 180 ◦ C at 1 kHz) with a higher activation energy of about 1.5 eV. The β peak location and intensity for low temperatures (between 100 ◦ C and 120 ◦ C) change slightly on comparing the heating and cooling spectra, indicating also the effect of water molecules, which may act as a plasticizer. However, for higher temperatures, the β peak does not show any significant effect of the thermal cycle, and the relaxation is mainly attributed to the non-cooperative relaxation of the polyimide molecules. The ac conductivity (σ � ) values show that the electronic hopping process is influenced by the dynamics of the segmental and macromolecular chains of the polyimide in the γ and β relaxation regions. At high temperatures (>250 ◦ C) a plateau region appears in the ac conductivity allowing the extraction of the dc conductivity values, which are not affected between the heating and cooling measurements. This leads us to conclude that there are no significant morphological or chemical changes in the polyimide even for temperatures higher than its glass transition one under N2 for short periods. For temperatures above 300 ◦ C an increase in the values of relative permittivity is observed and referred to the Maxwell–Wagner–Sillars or to the electrode polarization phenomena. In this range the activation energy of the polarization peak frequency, conductivity relaxation peak frequency and the dc conductivity is the same and equal to 2.4 eV, indicating that those three parameters are governed by the same underlying mechanism. (Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

Rabih Khazaka

Papers

Survey of High-Temperature Reliability of Power Electronics Packaging Components

Review on Joint Shear Strength of Nano-Silver Paste and Its Long-Term High Temperature Reliability

Evaluation of Encapsulation Materials for High-Temperature Power Device Packaging

Polyimide lifetime under partial discharge aging: effects of temperature, pressure and humidity

Broadband dielectric spectroscopy of BPDA/ODA polyimide films