Degradation Behavior of High Power Semiconductor Modules by Low-Temperature Sintering Technology

Abstract

This paper presents a degradation behavior of high-power semiconductor modules, i.e., IGBT, with sintered silver by power cycle test and thermal cycle test. The electrical characteristics, such as on-state voltage drop, thermal resistance and leakage current, were studied. For power cycle test, the IGBT module still has an acceptable electrical performance after the 30 K power cycles. No noticeable changes can be found in the die-attach layer, while the DBC-attach layer begins to fail after 30 K power cycles. For the thermal cycling test, the electrical characteristics of the IGBT module were only tested within the first 300 cycles because the Al2O3 DBC substrate failed first before the failure of the bonding layers. Finally, finite element methods (FEM) were used to analyze thermal and mechanical stress distribution and failure mechanism of the bonding layers.