Using failure analysis techniques to identify key information of PHM

Failure analysis (FA) is a basic and effective method to obtain the physical and failure information of electronic components and circuits. Most of these information can provide many useful evidences for prognostic and system health management (PHM) of electronic products. To obtain these information, many failure analysis techniques are used. This paper focuses on analyzing the relationship between FA techniques and PHM system. To test and verify the availability of the relationship between FA techniques and PHM system, a failure analysis case of an Intelligent Power Module (IPM) is used to study the relationship. This IPM contains six insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and there are obvious burnout indications on most of them after failure. With the process of failure analysis, the key information, such as component's structure, sensitive parameters are identified. These results persuasively prove that FA techniques can provide much information to PHM system, including PoF and data-driven methods.