Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Bond wire lift-off caused by low-cycle fatigue is one among the dominant failure mechanisms of modern high power Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors multichip modules used in traction applications. A model is proposed which is calibrated basing on data from accelerated tests and which predicts quantitatively the lifetime of devices submitted to cyclic loads as they are encountered in current converters of railway systems. It assumes linear accumulation of the thermal-cycle fatigue damage and takes into account the redundancy of the bond wires within a complex multichip module. <s> BIB001 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Abstract This paper reviews the main failure mechanisms occurring in modern power modules paying special attention to insulated gate bipolar transistor devices for high-power applications. This compendium provides the main failure modes, the physical or chemical processes that lead to the failure, and reports some major technological countermeasures, which are used for realizing the very stringent reliability requirements imposed in particular by the electrical traction applications. <s> BIB002 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Status monitoring and performance diagnosis for variable speed ac drives today is a need, more or less, depending on their application. Diagnosis can help to avoid unplanned standstill, to make possible to run an emergency operation in case of a fault or to keep the time to repair short in case of a fault. For the voltage source inverter several faults are possible. In this paper, these faults and their diagnosis are covered. Possible faults and remedial strategies are listed. It is enumerated, which faults in today's standard protection systems are diagnosed. The main faults, in general not covered in these systems, are the transistor open circuit fault and the dc bus capacitor fault. In these fields diagnosis methods are under research. Some of the various reports of research groups in this field are outlined here as a survey with respect to function and properties. <s> BIB003 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Variable speed drives have become industrial standard in many applications. Therefore fault diagnosis of voltage source inverters is becoming more and more important. One possible fault within the inverter is an open circuit transistor fault. An overview of the different strategies to detect this fault is given, including the algorithms used to localize the open transistor. Previous work showed significant differences among the available methods to detect such a fault for a mains side active rectifier. This paper extends the performance evaluation for the inverter connected to the machine with variable stator voltage and frequency. Simulation results are presented. They show the influence of the applied standard field oriented control on the currents during a fault. An experimental setup in the laboratory is used to validate simulation results. Typical detection results are presented including time-to-detection measurements. Robust detection of open transistor faults has been found to be possible <s> BIB004 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> There has been a growing interest in monitoring the ongoing "health" of products and systems in order to predict failures and provide warning to avoid catastrophic failure. Here, health is defined as the extent of degradation or deviation from an expected normal condition. While the application of health monitoring, also referred to as prognostics, is well established for assessment of mechanical systems, this is not the case for electronic systems. However, electronic systems are integral to the functionality of most systems today, and their reliability is often critical for system reliability. This paper presents the state-of-practice and the current state-of-research in the area of electronics prognostics and health management. Four current approaches include built-in-test (BIT), use of fuses and canary devices, monitoring and reasoning of failure precursors, and modeling accumulated damage based on measured life-cycle loads. Examples are provided for these different approaches, and the implementation challenges are discussed. <s> BIB005 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> This paper presents a survey on existing methods for fault diagnosis and protection of IGBT's, with special focus on those used in three-phase power inverters. Twenty one methods for open-circuit faults and ten methods for short-circuit faults are evaluated and summarized, based on their performance and implementation efforts. The gate-misfiring faults and their diagnostic methods are also briefly discussed. Finally, the promising methods are recommended for future work. <s> BIB006 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Condition monitoring (CM) has already been proven to be a cost effective means of enhancing reliability and improving customer service in power equipment, such as transformers and rotating electrical machinery. CM for power semiconductor devices in power electronic converters is at a more embryonic stage; however, as progress is made in understanding semiconductor device failure modes, appropriate sensor technologies, and signal processing techniques, this situation will rapidly improve. This technical review is carried out with the aim of describing the current state of the art in CM research for power electronics. Reliability models for power electronics, including dominant failure mechanisms of devices are described first. This is followed by a description of recently proposed CM techniques. The benefits and limitations of these techniques are then discussed. It is intended that this review will provide the basis for future developments in power electronics CM. <s> BIB007 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> A questionnaire survey was carried out to determine the industrial requirements and expectations of reliability in power electronic converters. The survey was subjective and conducted with a number of high-profile semiconductor manufacturers, integrators, and users in the aerospace, automation, motor drive, utility power, and other industry sectors. According to the survey, power semiconductor devices ranked the most fragile components. It was concluded that main stresses were from the environment, transients, and heavy loads, which should be considered during power electronic system design and normal operation. This paper has also highlighted that there is a significant need identified by the responders for better reliability-monitoring methods and indicators. <s> BIB008 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> Abstract Reliability is becoming more and more important as the size and number of installed Wind Turbines (WTs) increases. Very high reliability is especially important for offshore WTs because the maintenance and repair of such WTs in case of failures can be very expensive. WT manufacturers need to consider the reliability aspect when they design new power converters. By designing the power converter considering the reliability aspect the manufacturer can guarantee that the end product will ensure high availability. This paper represents an overview of the various aspects of reliability prediction of high power Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) in the context of wind power applications. At first the latest developments and future predictions about wind energy are briefly discussed. Next the dominant failure mechanisms of high power IGBTs are described and the most commonly used lifetime prediction models are reviewed. Also the concept of Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) is briefly reviewed. <s> BIB009 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> A new era of power electronics was created with the invention of the thyristor in 1957. Since then, the evolution of modern power electronics has witnessed its full potential and is quickly expanding in the applications of generation, transmission, distribution, and end-user consumption of electrical power. The performance of power electronic systems, especially in terms of efficiency and power density, has been continuously improved by the intensive research and advancements in circuit topologies, control schemes, semiconductors, passive components, digital signal processors, and system integration technologies. <s> BIB010 </s> Catastrophic failure and fault-tolerant design of IGBT power electronic converters - an overview <s> INTRODUCTION <s> To decrease the cost of ownership of photovoltaic systems, less costly and more reliable photovoltaic inverters must be developed. Insulated gate bipolar transistors are a significant cause of inverter failures and system inefficiencies, so a thorough understanding of their strengths and weaknesses with regards to inverters is necessary. This paper summarizes the current state of experimentation surrounding the use of IGBTs in photovoltaic inverters and discusses their construction, use, lifetime, and reliability of IGBTs regularly used in photovoltaic inverters. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. <s> BIB011
Nowadays, power electronics play an important role in motor drives, utility interfaces with renewable energy sources, power transmission (e.g. high-voltage direct current systems, and flexible alternating current transmission systems), electric or hybrid electric vehicles and many other applications. Therefore, the reliability of power electronics becomes more and more vital, and should draw more attention BIB010 . According to a survey, semiconductor failure and soldering joints failure in power devices take up 34% of power electronic system failures  . Another survey shows that around 38% of the faults in variable-speed ac drives are due to failure of power devices BIB003 . A recent questionnaire on industrial power electronic systems also showed that all the responders regard power electronic reliability as an important issue, and 31% of the responders selected the "semiconductor power device" as the most fragile component BIB008 . It can be seen that studying the reliability of power devices is important. Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) are hybrid bipolar-metal-oxide semiconductor, which have the advantages of low on-state resistance, voltage control of the gate and wide safe operating area. IGBTs are also one of the most critical components as well as the widely used power devices in power electronic systems in the range above 1 kV and 1 kW. According to the survey, the most used power devices for industrial applications are IGBTs BIB008 . Therefore it is worth investigating IGBT's failure and exploring the solutions to improve the reliability of IGBT power electronic converters. The failure of IGBTs can be generally classified as catastrophic failure and wear out failure. IGBT wear out failure is mainly induced by accumulated degradation with time, while catastrophic failure is triggered by single-event overstress, such as overvoltage, overcurrent, overheat and so on. Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) method can monitor the degradation of IGBTs and estimate wear out failure BIB005 . However, PHM is not applicable for catastrophic failure, which is more difficult to be predicted. Several overview papers have covered the topics on IGBT failure and fault diagnosis, and protection methods BIB009 BIB002 BIB001 BIB007 BIB011 BIB004 BIB006 . In BIB009 , C. Busca et al discuss the major wear out failure mechanisms of IGBTs in wind power application. It covers the bond wire lift-off, solder joint fatigue and bond wire heel cracking due to coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) mismatch, aluminum reconstruction, and cosmic ray induced failure for IGBT modules. The fretting damage, spring fatigue, spring stress relaxation and cosmic ray induced failure of presspack IGBTs are summarized. The aforementioned failure mainly occurs due to long time operation or power/thermal cycling, which can be classified as wear out failure, while no catastrophic failure is investigated. In BIB002 , M. Ciappa gives a comprehensive overview on IGBT module wear out failure mechanisms, such as bond wire fatigue, aluminum reconstruction, substrate cracking, interconnections corrosion, and solder fatigue and voids, while IGBT catastrophic failure is not discussed in detail except for the mechanism of latch-up. In particular, the bond wire lift-off mechanism is also discussed and modeled in BIB001 . In BIB007 , S. Yang et al review the condition monitoring for semiconductor devices in power electronic converters. Some general failure mechanisms of power devices are also described. Bond wire lift-off and solder fatigue are investigated in detail, while only latch-up, gate oxide breakdown are mentioned for IGBT catastrophic failure. Diagnosis and prognosis methods for power devices degradation are also investigated. In BIB011 , J. Flicker et al discuss IGBT failure in detail, including all wear out failure mechanisms mentioned above, as well as some catastrophic short-circuit failure mechanisms. However, the failure mechanisms such as second breakdown, high voltage breakdown and the open-circuit catastrophic failure have not been covered. IGBT failure is also generally mentioned in references BIB004 and BIB006 , which are more focused on IGBT fault diagnosis, detection and protection methods. As discussed above, previous review papers on IGBT failure are mainly focused on wear out failure. A detailed and comprehensive review on IGBT catastrophic failure is still lacking, though. Moreover, it is also worth having an overview on the fault-tolerant designs to deal with or isolate IGBT catastrophic failure in power electronic converters. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide an unbiased review of the major types of IGBT catastrophic failure due to overstresses and the corresponding fault-tolerant designs to deal with the failure at converter level. The paper is organized as follows: Section II classifies the IGBT catastrophic failure types. Section III summarizes the catastrophic failure of IGBTs in terms of failure mode and failure mechanism. Section IV discusses modern redundancy techniques for catastrophic failure tolerance. The detailed mechanisms of the fault tolerant circuits are also illustrated. The concluding remarks are summarized in Section V.