Review of Methodologies for Structural Integrity Evaluation of Power Modules

This paper reviews the previous research on the methodologies for evaluating structural integrity of wire bonds and die-attachments in power modules. Under power module operation, these parts are subjected to repeated temperature variations which induce repeated thermal stress due to the mismatch in coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) of the constituent materials. Thus, thermal fatigue phenomena are critical issues for the structural integrity of power modules. In the present paper, we also deal with the evaluation methodologies for thermal fatigue in the temperatures over 200 °C, which are expected operational temperatures for wide bandgap semiconductor power modules. The failure models based on the temperature range ΔT widely used in the power electronics community are critically reviewed from a mechanical engineering viewpoint. Detailed discussion is given concerning the superiority of failure models based on the physical quantities such as the inelastic strain range Δεin, the inelastic strain energy density range ΔWin, and the nonlinear fracture mechanics parameter range ΔT* over the conventional ΔT-based failure models. It is also pointed out that the distributed state concept (DSC) approaches based on the unified constitutive modeling and the unified mechanics theory are promising for evaluating the structural integrity of power modules. Two kinds of test methods, a power cycling test (PCT) and a thermal cycling test (TCT), are discussed in the relation to evaluating the lifetimes of wire-liftoff and die attach cracking.