Mission Profile related Design for Reliability for Power Electronics based on Finite Element Simulation

In the classical development process of electronic components, experimental tests under standard conditions (thermal shock, active load change tests) as well as simulations of exactly these tests are carried out for the investigation of thermo-mechanical reliability. Validated simulation models can be then used to virtually investigate a wide range of parameters such as (geometry, material and packaging technology) as a part of design studies (Design for Reliability – DfR). This saves valuable development time and avoids the production of real components for testing purposes and its long testing time. However, these design studies do not consider the influence of load sequences and interactions during service life. In real field, the loading and environmental conditions varies drastically, especially for power electronics. Therefore, validity of the assessment practice may even become questionable. For the design of power converters, mission profile related load scenarios have already been established for electric and electric-thermal simulations [1] , [2] . However, the mechanical part is still missing.