Tracking of Aging Processes in Power Electronic Converters Using the Rainflow Method

The analysis of power cycling in semiconductor modules is often based on a normalized lifetime consumption or cumulative damage models added up via Miner's rule. Although this is a widely accepted method to estimate a predicted lifetime it is not possible to overlay those results with other wear-out mechanisms caused by aging degradation progress in time. The paper describes a method to derive a reasonable aging model based on typical power cycling data provided by industry.