Enhanced power cycling performance of IGBT modules with a reinforced emitter contact

• Reliability improvement of power modules in terms of power cycling performance.
• Influence of a sintered metal plate on an IGBT on the reliability of power modules.
• Description of a novel method to manufacture Cu wire bonded emitter contacts.
• Experimental cycling and evaluating of standard and reinforced emitter contacts.
• Improvement of the cycling capability of power modules by a factor of 10.

A typical emitter contact of an IGBT consists of a front metallization and bond wires. In this study, the power cycling performance of a special emitter contact design is experimentally verified. The emitter contact includes a metal plate, which is Ag-sintered to the metallization and wire bonded on the top surface. Either Cu or Al bond wires were implemented. Power cycling tests were performed to investigate the performance of such IGBT modules. The results were very promising and a cycling lifetime was achieved, which is about 20 times higher than the lifetime of typical IGBT modules. For a better understanding of the experimental results, the electrical and thermal response of the IGBT modules were simulated by FEM. The results of this study, provide a key for high-reliability designs of the emitter contact of IGBT modules with superior power cycling capability.