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Electro-thermo-mechanical analyses on silver sintered IGBT-module reliability in power cycling

New demands on the thermo-mechanical design of sintered silver interconnections emerge. Development of this inter-connection technology and both experimental and theoretical studies on their reliability were subjects of the project “PROPOWER”. The focus of this paper is on theoretical analysis of thermo-mechanical reliability risks of a project demonstrator, an insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module, subjected to power cycling loadings. Coupled electro-thermal-mechanical analyses have been carried out using the finite element method (FEM). Introduction of a new interconnect material means at the same time introduction of a new constitutive behavior and new failure modes. As the material stiffness increases, the decoupling effect of compliant solder layers reduces and intrinsic mechanical stresses increase in the whole power stack. This leads on one hand to less low cycle fatigue in the interconnect, as plastic dissipation is reduced, but on the other hand to higher failure risks like brittle cracking and sub-critical crack growth. However, if early brittle failure can be avoided by appropriate designs, the new interconnection technology allows an increase in fatigue reliability of several hundred percent. Based on the complex theoretical framework simulation results are validated by testing in order to achieve trustworthy thermo-mechanical reliability predictions. Failures like chip metallization damage and the different damage mechanisms of the die bond if either solder or sinter silver is used are related to the different stress situations in the module.