Exceeding Power Electronic Lifetime Expectations with Advanced In-Module Cooling

A major failure mechanism in power electronic is power cycling. Permanent change in temperature combined with thermal expansion leads to thermal-mechanical stress in the interconnecting elements. Degradation is a consequence which eventually leads to failure of the device. A new approach in cooling the power components massively reduces the temperature swing, thus Increasing the number of cycles the device can handle for a given current. The presentation reveals, how big this influence is, based on a real load profile taken from a truck during operation. Based on first results, the improvement of a factor 200 can be expected.