Design of a Health-monitoring Device for Surveillance of Power Modules Based on Fluctuations of the Local Magnetic Field

Wire bond lift-off and die attachment degradation are two of the major indications for a device failure inside modern power electronic modules. Different methods to determine those failures exist in form of various optical approaches and by determining the Collector-Emitter voltage (V
CE
) or Thermal Impedance of the Insulated-Gate-Bipolar-Transistor (IGBT). The aim of this paper is to introduce a novel detection method based on monitoring of the local magnetic field. A surveillance device is designed for usage in a three phase inverter during on-field operation. Its functionality is verified with manual wire-bond cutting and inside a power cycling test bench on a single IGBT switch.