Reliability assessment platform for the power semiconductor devices - Study case on 3-phase grid-connected inverter application

Because of the high cost of failure, the reliability performance of power semiconductor devices is becoming a more and more important and stringent factor in many energy conversion applications. Thus, the need for appropriate reliability analysis of the power electronics emerges. Due to its conventional approach, mainly based on failure statistics from the field, the reliability evaluation of the power devices is still a challenging task. In order to address the given problem, a reliability assessment platform is proposed in this paper. An advanced reliability design tool software, which can provide valuable reliability information based on given mission profiles and system specification is first developed and its main concept is presented. In order to facilitate the test and access to the loading and lifetime information of the power devices, a novel mission profile based stress emulator experimental setup is proposed and designed. The link between the stress emulator setup and the reliability tool software is highlighted. Finally, the reliability assessment platform is demonstrated on a 3-phase grid-connected inverter application study case.