Power cycle testing of power switches: A literature survey

Lakshmi Reddy GopiReddy, Leon M. Tolbert, Burak Ozpineci

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

174 Scopus citations

Abstract

Reliability of power converters and lifetime prediction has been a major topic of research in the last few decades, especially for traction applications. The main failures in high power semiconductors are caused by thermomechanical fatigue. Power cycling and temperature cycling are the two most common thermal acceleration tests used in assessing reliability. The objective of this paper is to study the various power cycling tests found in the literature and to develop generalized steps in planning application specific power cycling tests. A comparison of different tests based on the failures, duration, test circuits, and monitored electrical parameters is presented.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6902808
Pages (from-to)2465-2473
Number of pages9
JournalIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
Volume30
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation
U.S. Department of Energy

    Keywords

    • Failure mechanisms
    • lifetime estimation
    • physics of failure
    • power cycling
    • precursor indicators
    • semiconductor reliability

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