Precise Prediction of Sustainable Operating Life of Tantalum Capacitors Applied in Solid State Drives

Emerging technology market trends based on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), the Internet of Things (IoT), and Machine Learning (ML) are greatly and rapidly affecting our lives. These markets will grow further within 10 years, especially in the AI market alone, which is expected to grow every year. Solid State Drives (SSDs) should be more reliable as better stability is required for collecting big data through servers, datacenters, and enterprise applications. As the memory storage capacity of the SSDs increases, more immediate backup energy is also needed accordingly, so a larger number of Tantalum Capacitors (TC) must be mounted on SSDs. On the other hand, as SSDs becomes thinner and more compact, limitations on surface mounting area and height of electric components are also tightened. Regarding storage capacitor selection, PEDOT-PSS based TC, which is relatively stable in reliability, only meets the height limitation for thin E1.S and E3.S form factors, newly classified by world-wide Enterprise and Datacenter Storage Form Factor (EDSFF). The present study relates to the change trend of storage energy level of TC observed through High Temperature Operating Life (HTOL) test under various environmentally accelerated test conditions, varying temperature and charging bias. More accurate predictive methods of the life expectancy on storage capacitors and SSDs were discussed based on the calculated acceleration factors for each test variables affecting operating life. Furthermore, the optimal number of TC in SSD was suggested, considering not only energy efficiency and expected life, but also cost saving and mounting space.