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access icon free Monitoring of ageing chips of semiconductor power modules using eddy current sensor

  • Author(s): T.A. Nguyen 1 ; P.-Y. Joubert 2 ; S. Lefebvre 1 ; S. Bontemps 3
    • View affiliations
    • Affiliations: 1: SATIE, ENS Cachan, CNRS, Universud, 61 avenue du président Wilson, 94230 Cachan, France;
      2: Université de Paris-Sud, IEF, CNRS, Centre Scientifique d'Orsay, Bât. 220, 91405 Orsay, France;
      3: Microsemi Power Modules Products, 26 rue de Campilleau, 33520 Bruges, France
  • Source: Volume 49, Issue 6, 14 March 2013, p. 415 – 417
    DOI:  10.1049/el.2012.4387 , Print ISSN 0013-5194, Online ISSN 1350-911X
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 21/12/2012, Published
Errata or comment

The relevance of the eddy current sensing technique to monitor the ageing state of electronic power modules has been experimentally studied. To do so, a commercial eddy current sensor was implemented for the evaluation of COOLMOSTM transistor chips soldered on a direct copper bonded ceramic substrate of a power module. The measurement data obtained over a large frequency bandwidth were analysed in the normalised complex impedance plane. The analysis shows that the sensor enables the chip and the substrate to be separately sensed. Furthermore, the ageing state of artificially aged chips can be clearly monitored. These preliminary results allow the design of eddy current micro-sensors dedicated to power module in-service monitoring purposes to be envisaged.

Inspec keywords: microsensors; eddy currents; electric sensing devices; power transistors; ageing

Other keywords: power module in-service monitoring; normalised complex impedance plane; electronic power modules; eddy current microsensor design; frequency bandwidth analysis; semiconductor power modules; eddy current sensing technique; eddy current sensor; artificially aged chips; COOLMOS transistor chips; direct copper bonded ceramic substrate; ageing chip monitoring

Subjects: Power semiconductor devices; Microsensors and nanosensors; MEMS and NEMS device technology

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