Speaker: Dr Eckhard Wolfgang, European Center for Power Electronics e.V. (retired from Siemens Research)
Presentation Slides: “Ten Years of Robustness Validation Applied to Power Electronics Components” (4.3 MB PDF)
Meeting Date: Thursday, April 27, 2017
Time: 11:30 AM Registration (and pizza/drinks); 12:00 PM Presentation
Presentation-only: 12:00 noon (come at 11:45)
Cost: $5 IEEE members, students, unemployed; $10 non-members
Location: Texas Instruments Building E Conference Center, 2900 Semiconductor Dr. (off Kifer Rd), Santa Clara
Reservations: 1704cpmt.eventbrite.com
Summary: The Robustness Validation process is based on the knowledge of the condition of use (mission profile), the physics of failure, and of acceleration models for lifetime prediction. It provides a “test to fail” qualification instead of “test-to pass”, which results in “Fit for Application”. A Team consisted of German auto carmakers, with 1st and 2nd tiers (power module and DC-link) manufacturers, developed qualification specifications, moderated by ZVEI and ECPE. End-of-life tests play an important role together with lifetime models. Advanced technologies consisting of new materials, such as thick copper wire bonds, or planar interconnect schemes, such as silver-sintered or embedded-sandwich modules, however, will show new failure modes and mechanisms which have to be considered for qualification.
Bio: Dr. Eckhard Wolfgang received his PhD in technical physics from the Technical University Vienna in 1970. In the same year he joined Siemens Research at Munich where he stayed until 2016. From 1989 until 2016 he headed the power electronics department. Since then he is working as a consultant for ECPE e.V. (European Center for Power Electronics), mainly in the field of education (Tutorials, Workshops, Conferences like CIPS).
