Mission-specific aging of Power Modules

Abstract:
Semiconductor power modules age and eventually fail often due to thermal stress. In an earlier work, we developed an approach to predict a power module’s lifetime (MTTF) in inverters within an electric vehicle model. The main advantage of the suggested approach is that the lifetime estimation happens continuously through the simulation and this information can be fed back to the thermal model. Considering aging effect in the thermal model is reasonable, since the aging effects deteriorate the module’s thermal behavior. Herein, we examine how much difference the presence of this feedback makes in comparison to a model without it.