Evaluation of Vce at Inflection Point for Monitoring Bond Wire Degradation in Discrete Packaged IGBTs

A novel scheme is proposed for online condition monitoring of bond wires present in insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) package. The proposed method detects bond wire degradation using on-state collector emitter voltage at the inflection point. Previously reported condition monitoring methods based on on-state collector-emitter voltage as a precursor of aging require an accurate knowledge of junction temperature which is difficult to measure online during an inverter operation. The key advantage of the proposed scheme is that it monitors the bond wire degradation irrespective of the junction temperature. Therefore, this technique is not affected by increase in junction temperature due to die attach degradation or change in ambient temperature. The proposed scheme is verified experimentally under realistic operating conditions.