Transitioning To Physics-of-Failure As A Reliability Driver in Power Electronics

IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 2, NO.
1, MARCH 2014
97
Transitioning to Physics-of-Failure as a Reliability

Driver in Power Electronics
Huai Wang, Member, IEEE, Marco Liserre, Fellow, IEEE, Frede Blaabjerg, Fellow, IEEE,
Peter de Place Rimmen, John B. Jacobsen, Thorkild Kvisgaard, and Jrn Landkildehus
Abstract Power electronics has progressively gained an
important status in power generation, distribution, and consumption. With more than 70% of electricity processed through power
electronics, recent research endeavors to improve the reliability
of power electronic systems to comply with more stringent
constraints on cost, safety, and availability in various applications.
This paper serves to give an overview of the major aspects
of reliability in power electronics and to address the future
trends in this multidisciplinary research direction. The ongoing
paradigm shift in reliability research is presented first. Then,
the three major aspects of power electronics reliability are
discussed, respectively, which cover physics-of-failure analysis
of critical power electronic components, state-of-the-art design
for reliability process and robustness validation, and intelligent
control and condition monitoring to achieve improved reliability
under operation. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for
achieving more reliable power electronic systems in the future
are discussed.
Index Terms Capacitors, design for reliability (DFR),
insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules, physics-offailure (PoF), power electronics, robustness validation.
I. I NTRODUCTION
OWER electronics enables efficient conversion and

flexible control of electric energy by taking advantage
of the innovative solutions in active and passive components,
circuit topologies, control strategies, sensors, digital signal
processors, and system integrations. While targets concerning
efficiency of power electronic systems are within reach, the
increasing reliability requirements create new challenges due
to the following factors:
1) mission profiles critical applications (e.g., aerospace,
military, more electrical aircrafts, railway tractions, automotive, data center, and medical electronics);
2) emerging applications under harsh environment and long
operation hours [e.g., onshore and offshore wind tur-
Manuscript received April 22, 2013; revised August 21, 2013 and
October 12, 2013; accepted November 1, 2013. Date of publication
November 11, 2013; date of current version January 29, 2014. Recommended
for publication by Associate Editor Philip T. Krein.
H. Wang and F. Blaabjerg are with the Department of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Aalborg DK-9220, Denmark (e-mail: hwa@et.aau.dk;
fbl@et.aau.dk).
M. Liserre is with the Department of Faculty of Engineering, ChristianAlbrechts-University of Kiel, Kiel 24143, Germany (e-mail: mli@et.aau.dk).
P. de Place Rimmen and J. Landkildehus are with the Research and
Development Design Center, Danfoss Power Electronics A/S, Grsten
DK-6300, Denmark (e-mail: pr@danfoss.com; jla@danfoss.com).
J. B. Jacobsen and T. Kvisgaard are with GRUNDFOS Holding
A/S, Bjerringbro DK-8850, Denmark (e-mail: jbjacobsen@grundfos.com;
tkvisgaard@grundfos.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JESTPE.2013.2290282
bines (WTs), photovoltaic (PV) systems, air conditions,

and pump systems];
3) more stringent cost constraints, reliability requirements,
and safety compliances, e.g., demand for parts per
million (ppm) level failure rates in future products;
4) continuous need for higher power density in power converters and higher level integration of power electronic
systems, which may invoke new failure mechanisms and
thermal issues;
5) uncertainty of reliability performance for new materials
and packaging technologies (e.g., SiC and GaN devices);
6) increasing complexity of electronic systems in terms
of functions, number of components, and control algorithms;
7) resource constraints (e.g., time and cost) for reliability
testing and robustness validation due to time-to-market
pressure and financial pressure.
Table I lists the industrial challenges in a reliability perspective of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. To meet the future
application trends and customer expectations for ppm level
failure rate per year, it is essential to have better understanding
of failure mechanisms of power electronic components and to
explore innovative Research and Development approaches to
build reliability in power electronic circuits and systems.
From this perspective, opportunities exist for power
electronics to expand its role in dealing with efficient and
reliable power processing in different kinds of applications.
Nearly four decades ago, the scope of power electronics
was defined by William E. Newell as three of the major
disciplines of electrical engineering shown in Fig. 1(a) [1].
Likewise, the future reliability research in power electronics
involves multidisciplinary knowledge as defined here, shown
in Fig. 1(b). It covers the following three major aspects:
1) analytical analysis to understand the nature of why and
how power electronic products fail; 2) design for reliability
(DFR) and robustness validation process to build in reliability
and sufficient robustness in power electronic products during
each development process; and 3) intelligent control and
condition monitoring to ensure reliable field operation under
specific mission profiles. Robustness validation is a process
that is widely accepted and implemented in the automotive
sector, which is to demonstrate that a product performs its
intended functions with sufficient margin under a defined
mission profile within its specified lifetime [2]. Mission profile is a representation of all of the relevant operation and
environmental conditions throughout the full life cycle [2]
through production process, test, shipping, and service to
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98
IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 2, NO. 1, MARCH 2014
TABLE I
R ELIABILITY C HALLENGE IN I NDUSTRY S EEN B EFORE , T ODAY, AND IN THE F UTURE
TABLE II
T YPICAL L IFETIME TARGET IN D IFFERENT P OWER E LECTRONIC
A PPLICATIONS
Fig. 1. Defined scope in (a) power electronics by William E. Newell in the

1970s [1] and (b) power electronic reliability research needs seen from today.
end of life. The robustness validation process involves the

activities of verification, legal validation, and producer risk
margin validation.
This paper gives an overview of power electronics reliability
from the three respective aspects defined in Fig. 1(b) and
addresses the future trends in this multidisciplinary research
direction. Section II lists the ongoing paradigm shift in
reliability research in power electronics. Section III presents
the physics-of-failure (PoF) analysis of reliability-critical
components to provide a basis for system level design.
Section IV discusses the state-of-the-art DFR and robustness
validation process to build-in reliability through design.
Section V presents the control and monitoring (including faulttolerant strategies) methods to improve reliability of power
electronic systems under field operation. Finally, the future
challenges and opportunities in reliability of power electronics
are discussed.
II. O NGOING PARADIGM S HIFT IN R ELIABILITY
R ESEARCH IN P OWER E LECTRONICS
Reliability is defined as the ability of an item to perform
the required function under stated conditions for a certain
period of time [3], which is often measured by probability
of survival and failure rate. It is relevant to the durability
(i.e., lifetime) and availability of the item. The essence of
reliability engineering is to prevent the creation of failures. The
deficiencies in the design phase have effect on all produced
items and the cost to correct them is progressively increased
as the development proceeds.
A. Reliability in Typical Power Electronic Applications

The performance requirements of power electronic products
are increasingly demanding in terms of cost, efficiency,
reliability, environmental sustainable materials, size, and
power density. Of which, the reliability performance has
influences on the safety, service quality, lifetime, availability,
and life cycle cost of the specific applications. Table II lists
the typical design target of lifetime in different applications.
To meet those requirements, paradigm shift is going on in the
area of automotive electronics, more electrical aircrafts, and
railway tractions by introducing new reliability design tools
and robustness validation methods [2], [4], [5].
With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources
and the increasing adoption of more efficient variable-speed
motor drives [6][8], the failure of power electronic converters
in WTs, PV systems, and motor drives are becoming an issue.
Field experiences in renewables reveal that power electronic
converters are usually one of the most critical assemblies
in terms of failure level, lifetime, and maintenance cost [9].
For example, it shows that frequency converters cause 13% of
the failure level and 18.4% of the downtime of 350 onshore
WTs in a recent study associated with 35 000 downtime events
[10]. Another representative survey in [11] concludes that
PV inverters are responsible for 37% of the unscheduled
maintenance and 59% of the associated cost during five years
of operation of a 3.5-MW PV plant. It should be noted that
such statistics always look backward as those designs are more
than 10 years old. The present technology could have different
figures.
B. Ongoing Paradigm Shift in Reliability Research
The reliability engineering has emerged as an identified
discipline since the 1950s with the demands to address
WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER
the reliability issues in electronic products for military

applications [12]. Since then, much pioneer work has been
devoted to various reliability topics. One of the main streams
is the quantitative reliability prediction based on empirical
data and various handbooks released by military and industry
[13]. Another stream of the discipline focuses on identifying
and modeling of the physical causes of component failures,
which was the initial concept of the PoF presented in 1962
[14]. However, until the 1980s, the handbook based constant
failure rate models (e.g., Military-Handbook-217 series [15])
have been dominantly applied for describing the useful life of
electronic components. Since the 1990s, with the increased
complexity of electronic systems and especially the application
of integrated circuits (ICs), more and more evidences were
suggesting that constant failure rate models are inadequate
[16]. The Military-Handbook-217F is therefore officially
cancelled in 1995. The PoF approach has started to gain its
more and more important role in reliability engineering.
In recent years, the initiatives to update the MilitaryHandbook-217F have turned to a hybrid approach, which
is proposed for the planned version of Military-Handbook217H [17]. During the stage of programs acquisition-supplier
selection activities, updated empirical models will be used for
comparing different solutions. During the actual system design
and development stage, scientific-based reliability modeling
together with probabilistic methods will be applied. Intensive
PoF research has been continuously conducted since 1990s in
microelectronics and the state-of-the-art results are presented
in [16] and [18]. With the transition from pure empirical-based
methods to more scientific-based approaches, the paradigm
shift in reliability research is going on from the following
aspects.
1) From Components to Failure Mechanisms: The PoF
approach is a methodology based on root-cause failure mechanism analysis and the impact of materials, defects, and stresses
on product reliability [19]. It changes the analysis of system
from a box of components to a box of failure mechanisms.
The traditional handbook-based reliability prediction provides
failure rate models for various components. The PoF approach
analyzes and models each failure mechanism induced by
environmental and usage stresses. For a given component,
there could be multiple failure mechanisms, which should be
identified individually. In addition, failure mechanisms are not
limited to the component level. As discussed in the standard
ANSI/VITA 51.2 [18], there are various failure mechanisms
in component level (i.e., single transistor level), package level,
and printed circuit board (PCB) level. From this prospective,
it is challengeable to apply the PoF to a complex system
of which limited number of models and their associated
parameters are available [18]. Therefore, it is important to
identify and to focus on the critical failure mechanisms in
specific applications.
2) From Constant Failure Rate to MCF Curve: The conventional reliability metrics constant failure rate (defined as
) and the corresponding mean-time-between-failures (MTBF)
(defined as 1/) are found to be inappropriate to most practical cases as discussed in [9], [13], and [20]. Therefore, it
discouraged the indiscriminate use of these metrics.
99
Fig. 2.
Example of MCF or M(t) curve for explaining and measuring
reliability.
The failure rate over operational time is not constant.

An alternate technique to present the failure level and time is
the mean cumulative function (MCF) curve [21]. When analyzing repairable systems, it graphs the number of failures versus
time (i.e., since installation). It is also possible to represent
the behavior of the group of systems by an average number of
failures versus time, which is known as the MCF. As shown
in Fig. 2, it can be broken down to the main functions, which
can be described as following parameters: Zero time failures
occur from lack of robustness to transportation or installation,
indicated by the red line. Early failures come from lack of
production capabilities. Some few products are slipped through
the control parameters in the production, which are marked as
the green Weibull curve ( 1, where is defined as the
shape parameter in Weibull distribution [22]). If the product is
not robust to catastrophic stress, the product might fail. This
weakness is designed in and the time when failure occurs
has nothing to do with the age of the product. The only
way such accident can be shoved as random in the operation
time ( = 1), marked in orange curve. This has nothing with
failure rate values or MTBF to do. The last dominant curve
(i.e., the blue one) is the lack of lifetime. This is the accumulated degradation for all parameters, which are able to degrade
as a function of operational time. The customer will be the
person who sees the accumulated failure level of all these
weaknesses in the purple curve shown in Fig. 2. This figure is
also an integration of the bathtub model, but here it is possible
to operate with quantitative figures, which can be broken down
in budgets (e.g., the degradation budget).
3) From Reliability Prediction to Robustness Validation:
Conventional empirical methodologies mainly attempt to
determine the feasibility in fulfilling certain reliability goals
and to predict the warranty-costs and maintenance-support
requirements [12]. They provide limited insights in the design
of the systems themselves to eliminate failures within targeted
service life. Compared with them, the concept of the PoF is
to identify the root causes of different types of failure under
environmental and operation stress conditions. Therefore, it
helps to locate the weak links and formulate the corresponding
guidelines on robustness design, process control, validation
testing, and filed operation. Take the design as an example;
Fig. 3 shows how the designer shall understand degradation.
Products should be designed by considering the degraded
100
Fig. 3.
Concept for robustness design.
parameters at the end-of-life with certain level of design

margins. It is also shown that it makes only sense to measure
performance inside the design specifications. The optimal
situation is that the design is so good that no weakness can
be found inside the customer or design specifications. All
validations to reliability, lifetime, and robustness have to be
demonstrated outside or at design specifications under relative
high stress levels.
4) From Microelectronics to Also Power Electronics: The
PoF approach has been extensively applied to microelectronic
systems in the last two decades. Different failure mechanisms,
lifetime models, and equivalent damaged circuit simulation
models of electron devices are well presented in [16].
More and more new models are under development. Several
PoF-based industry standards or guidelines have been released
(see [2] and [18]). One of the common driven factors from
industry, academia, and military behind this is the demanding
for more reliable commercial-of-the-shell devices and systems.
In power electronic applications, reliability has been and
will continue to be one of the important performance aspects in
many applications as discussed in Section II-A. To address the
challenges discussed in Section I, power electronic engineers
and scientists have started to apply various reliability tools for
reliability prediction and reliability-oriented design of power
electronic converters or systems. Several literature reviews
on field experiences [23], strategies to improve reliability of
power electronic systems [24], and DFR for power electronic
systems [9] have been presented in the last two years. Respective research in different applications is also discussed in
various literatures, such as three-phase converters for aircrafts
[25], power inverters for railway tractions [26], inverters
for hybrid electric vehicles [27], high power variable-speed
motor drives [28], and pulsed power converters for industrial
process control [29]. Besides these applications, last decade
also saw much pioneering work on the reliability of power
converters for WTs [30][32] and inverters for PV systems

[33][50]. It reveals that, unlike the case in microelectronics,
conventional handbook methods are still dominantly applied
nowadays for the reliability prediction in those studies.
While the pace of power electronics toward PoF approach
is relatively slower than that of microelectronics, the need for
this paradigm shift has been well recognized in automotive
industry [2] and then in other sectors. Especially, much
interesting work from the semiconductor side investigates
the failure mechanisms of insulated-gate bipolar transistor
(IGBT) modules [51] and physical-based lifetime models [52].
More realistic thermal stress analysis of Si- and SiC-based
devices under long-term mission profile are also studied in [49]
and [50], respectively. The level of technology and scientific
understanding is still highly evolving. The research in microelectronics could provide a very important foundation for the
ongoing and future work in power electronics, especially from
the methodologies point of view. Nevertheless, it should be
noted that most of the physical-based models are not scalable
for power electronic components. System level reliability
problems (e.g., active thermal stresses, interconnections among
components, and interaction of different components) are still
of interest to be investigated. Therefore, the following three
sections intend to provide a basic framework of the future
reliability research in power electronics relevant to the ongoing
paradigm shift.
III. PoF A NALYSIS OF R ELIABILITY C RITICAL
C OMPONENTS IN P OWER E LECTRONICS
As shown in Fig. 1(b), understanding of the reliability
physics of components applied in power electronics is the
most fundamental aspect. The PoF approach is based on
analyzing and modeling each failure mechanism under various
environmental and usage stresses. In practice, the PoF analysis
focuses on critical components under critical stress conditions.
101
TABLE III
FPM IN R ELIABILITY OF P OWER E LECTRONIC C OMPONENTS
Among other components, switching devices and capacitors

are two of the most vulnerable components in terms of failure
level and time as analyzed in [23], [34], [35], and [53].
They are considered as the reliability critical components
in power electronic converters, especially the IGBT modules
in medium to high-power applications and capacitors for
dc-link applications. Therefore, in the following parts, the
critical stressors for different power electronic components are
discussed first. Then, the PoF analysis of IGBT modules and
dc-link capacitors is given.
Fig. 4. Structural details of an IGBT module (connections that are relevant
to module lifetime are marked red) [54].
A. Critical Stressors for Different Power Electronic

Components
Focus point matrix (FPM), as suggested in [2], is a useful way to analyze the critical stressors that will kill the
components. Based on the accumulated industrial experiences
and future research needs, Table III shows the critical stressors for different components in power electronic systems.
It can be noted that steady-state temperature, temperature
swings, humidity, voltage, and vibrations have different level
of impact on semiconductor devices, capacitors, inductors,
and low power control boards. It provides the information on
determining the critical failure mechanisms. The interactions
among different stressors are also of interest to be explored.
B. PoF Analysis of IGBT Modules
Fig. 4 shows a typical structure of the IGBT modules [54].
There are three dominant wear-out failure mechanisms for the
IGBT modules due to cyclic thermal stress: 1) baseplate solder
joints cracking; 2) chip solder joint cracking; and 3) the wire
bonds liftoff. The cyclic thermal stress is a response to the
converter line and loading variations as well as periodically
Fig. 5.
Typical stress-strain ( ) curve for a material [55].
commutation of power switching devices. It will induce thermal cycling on different layers of materials used for fabrication
of power electronic components.
102
Fig. 6.
Typical catastrophic failure of IGBT modules [60].

TABLE IV
OVERVIEW OF FAILURE M ODES , C RITICAL FAILURE M ECHANISMS AND C RITICAL S TRESSORS OF THE T HREE M AIN T YPES OF DC-L INK C APACITORS
(W ITH E MPHASIS ON THE O NES R ELEVANT TO D ESIGN AND O PERATION OF P OWER C ONVERTERS )
Thermal cycling is found to be one of the main drivers for

failure of the IGBT modules. The effect of the temperature
cycling can be explained by the typical stressstrain curve [55]
shown in Fig. 5. The is defined as the cyclic stress (e.g.,
temperature cycling) and is defined as the deformation. With
a low cyclic stress below yield , no damage occurs and the
material is in the elastic region. When the stress is increased
above yield , an irreversible deformation is induced and the
material enters into the plastic region. The coefficients of
thermal expansion of different materials in the IGBT modules
are different, leading to stress formation in the packaging and
continuous degradation with each cycle until the material fails.
As derived in [9], the number of cycles to failure under thermal
cycling can be obtained as
N = k (T T0 )m
(1)
where k and m are empirically determined constants and N

is the number of cycles to failure. The T is the thermal
cycling range and T0 is the portion of T that in the elastic

strain range. If T0 is negligible compared with T , it can
be dropped out from the above equation, which then becomes
the CoffinManson model discussed in [56][58].
The model shown in (1) considers the influence of thermal
cycling only. It does not take into account the effect of steadystate temperature, thermal cycle time, and geometry. In [59],
an empirical model is developed for bond wire fatigue of
IGBT modules, which tends to treat all the above factors
as well as failure of the diodes in parallel with the IGBT
switches. In [52], a physical-based model for wire bond fatigue
has been developed which could analyze the cycle-to-failure
under different steady-state temperature and thermal cycle
time. Although it may be difficult to obtain some of the
parameters required by the model, it is a promising model
in its kind for the PoF analysis.
Besides wear-out failure that was discussed, different types
of catastrophic failure could also occur triggered by single-
TABLE V
W EAR -O UT FAILURE C RITERION AND PARAMETERS FOR C ONDITION
103
TABLE VII
L IFETIME P REDICTION R ESULTS OF THE S ELECTED IGBT M ODULES
M ONITORING OF C APACITORS
Fig. 7. 2L-BTB converter for a 2.3-MW WT using a permanent magnet

synchronous generator [9].
TABLE VI
C ONVERTER PARAMETERS FOR THE C ASE S TUDY [9]
event overstress. Unlike the wear-out failure, the catastrophic

failure is difficult to be predicted and thus may lead to
serious consequence to the power electronic converters. Fig. 6
classifies the IGBT catastrophic failure into open-circuit and
short-circuit modes induced by different failure mechanisms.
It should be noted that both wear-out and catastrophic failures
may have the same failure mechanisms (e.g., bond wire liftoff)
but the former one is due to long-term degradation (see the
blue curve in Fig. 2) and the latter one is due to single-event
overstress within short-time duration (see the orange curve in
Fig. 2).
C. PoF Analysis of DC-Link Capacitors
The dc-link capacitors contribute to cost, size, and failure
of power electronic converters on a considerable scale. To
address the issue, research efforts can be divided into two
directions: 1) advance the capacitor technology with improved

and predetermined reliability built in and 2) a proper and
optimal dc-link design based on the commercially available
capacitors to ensure reliable field operation. The latter one
is more relevant from the perspective of power electronic
designers, which is discussed here.
Three main types of capacitors are available for dc-link
applications, which are the aluminum electrolytic capacitors
(Al-Caps), metallized polypropylene film capacitors, (MPPFCaps) and high capacitance multilayer ceramic capacitors
(MLC-Caps). The dc-link design requires the matching of
available capacitor characteristics and parameters to the particular application needs under specific environmental, electrical,
and mechanical stresses. Table IV lists the failure modes,
critical failure mechanisms, and corresponding stressors. More
detailed discussions on them have been given in [61]. Table V
lists the wear-out failure criterion and typical electrical parameters for the condition monitoring of capacitors.
Lifetime prediction of capacitors is mainly based on empirical models as physical-based models are still not available. The
most widely used empirical model for capacitors is shown in
(2), which describes the influence of temperature and voltage
stress
n

1
V
Ea
1
exp
(2)
L = L0
V0
KB
T
T0
where L and L 0 are the lifetime under the use condition
and testing condition, respectively. V and V0 are the voltage
at use and test conditions, respectively. T and T0 are the
temperature in Kelvin at use and test conditions, respectively.
E a is the activation energy, K B is Boltzmanns constant
(8.62 105 eV /K), and n is the voltage stress exponent.
Therefore, the values of E a and n are the key parameters to
be determined in the above model.
However, the voltage dependence of lifetime for Al-Caps
quite depends on the voltage stress level. In [62], instead of a
power law relationship, a linear equation is found to be more
suitable to model the impact of voltage stress. In order to
obtain the physical explanations of the lifetime model variants
from different capacitor manufacturers, a generic model is
derived in [9] as shown in (3), as shown at the next top of the
page, where a0 and a1 are constants describing the voltage and
temperature dependence of E a . E a0 is the activation energy
under test. It can be noted that the influence of voltage stress
is modeled as linear, power law, and exponential relationship,
respectively, for low-, medium-, and high-voltage stresses.
Another important observation is that the activation energy E a
104

V0
Ea
1
1
exp
V
KB
T
T0
L
Ea
V
1
1
=
exp
V0
KB
T
T0
L0
E
exp [a1 (V0 V )] exp a0 a0 V
KBT
(low voltage stress)
E a0 a0 V0
K B T0
( medium voltage stress)
(3)
(high voltage stress)
Fig. 8. Single-phase grid-connected PV inverter. (a) Simplified structure.

(b) Instantaneous power flow.
is varying with voltage and temperature, especially under highvoltage stress condition. It is still a challenge to determine the
value of the parameters and the boundaries of low-, medium-,
and high-voltage stresses in (3).
D. Case Studies on the Application of IGBTs and
Capacitors in Power Converters
1) IGBT Modules in a 2.3-MW Grid-Side Wind Power
Converter: A case study on the lifetime prediction of IGBT
modules in a 2.3-MW wind power converter has been studied
in [9]. A two-level back-to-back (2L-BTB) converter is applied
in the paper as shown in Fig. 7. The technical advantage of
the 2L-BTB topology is the relatively simple structure and
few components, which contributes to a well-proven robust
and reliable performance. Table VI lists the specifications and
selections of the IGBT modules. By following the prediction
procedure from wind speed profile analysis, case temperature and junction temperature estimation, cycling counting of
temperature swings to parameter estimation of lifetime models,
the lifetime of two condidates of IGBT modules for the gridside converter is predicted in [9]. The lifetime prediction is
based on each of the three critical failure mechanisms related
to thermal cycling discussed in Section III-A. The results are
shown in Table VII. It should be noted that other failure
mechanisms induced by thermal stress or other types of
stresses need also to be considered, besides those listed in
Table VII.
2) DC-Link Capacitors in a 1-kW PV Inverter: Electrolytic
capacitors that widely used in PV inverters are considered as
the weakest link with respect to the semiconductor devices
[34], [35]. Therefore, the case study for dc-link capacitors is
performed on a 1-kW 400 V dc-link PV inverter.
Fig. 9. Simulation results of different capacitors under various ambient

temperatures [(a)(c) are with 1-kW output power and (d) is with minimum
lifetime of 20 years]. (a) Capacitor power losses. (b) Capacitor hotspot
temperatures. (c) Capacitor predicted lifetime. (d) Output power derating
curves.
Fig. 8(a) shows a simplified structure of the inverter. The

input power of the PV inverter is assumed constant within
105
TABLE VIII
T HREE K INDS OF C APACITORS FROM D IFFERENT M ANUFACTURES C ONSIDERED FOR THE PV I NVERTER D ESIGN
one cycle of the grid voltage. Fig. 8(b) shows the instantaneous power balancing function of the input capacitor C.
The nominal input voltage of the inverter is 400 V with a
maximum voltage ripple of 5% and a maximum input voltage
of 600 V. The calculated minimum required capacitance is
398 F and ripple current stress is 1.8 A. A reliability-oriented
design guideline proposed in [63] is applied for the selection
of the input capacitor to fulfill 20 years of lifetime. According
to the electrical stress analysis, preliminary choices of the
capacitors are determined as shown in Table VIII. Then, the
thermal stresses of those capacitors are estimated based on
their specific thermal models. The lifetime of the selected
capacitors is therefore can be estimated based on the mission
profile, operation mode, and specific lifetime model. The
applied empirical lifetime models from the respective capacitor
manufacturers are consistent with the generic lifetime model
shown in (3). Finally, the optimal capacitors can be chosen by
comparing different options.
Fig. 9(a)(c) shows the comparison of the power loss,
hotspot temperature, and lifetime prediction with 1-kW output
power. Fig. 9(d) shows the power derating curve to fulfill
the lifetime requirement. If 100 000 h of lifetime (equivalent
to 12 h/day operation in 20 years with a design margin of
12.4%) is required, it can be noted from Fig. 9(c) and (d) that
only the Case 3 can fulfill the requirement in a wide ambient
temperature range. The selection of Case 2 can only have 20
years of lifetime when the ambient temperature is <20C.
Therefore, the proposed method allows the optimal selection
of the input capacitors in terms of both electrical and reliability
performance.
According to Fig. 9(d), for applications when output power
derating is allowed, the required 100 000 h of lifetime could
still be fulfilled for selection of Cases 1 and 2 by load
management according to the derating curves.
IV. DFR AND ROBUSTNESS VALIDATION OF P OWER
E LECTRONICS
The second aspect of power electronics reliability is to
build in reliability and sufficient robustness into system design
through the DFR process. Industries have advanced the development of reliability engineering from traditional testing for
reliability to the DFR [64]. The DFR is the process conducted
during the design phase of a component or system that ensures
them to be able to achieve required level of reliability. It aims
to understand and fix the reliability problems up-front in the
design process.
In [65], a structured approach to the DFR was recommended, which include an interactive progression of key
design activities using appropriate analysis tools. Due to the

difference in chosen reliability tools and specified requirements of products, the DFR process varies with industry
sectors, however, the generic form usually covers the process
of identify, design, analyze, verify, validate, and control [64].
In [66], a DFR process is presented for aerospace systems
starting from the concept, planning and requirement, development, test and evaluation, release, and evaluate the field
operation performance.
Statistics is a necessary basis to deal with the effects of
uncertainty and variability on reliability, which is also true
for the PoF-based DFR process. Both empirical models and
physical-based models are subjected to various kinds of uncertainty in material properties, stress conditions, manufacture
process, and accuracy of the available models [67]. For example, if the variances of material-dependent parameters k, m and
T0 , and operational-stress-dependent parameter T are taken
into account in (1), the predicted lifetime of the IGBT modules
will be distributed with time rather than the single fixed values
as shown in Table VII. The two-parameter Weibull distribution
is widely applied to present the cumulative failure distribution
function [64] due to its flexibility to model different trends of
the failure level with time. In [68], the probabilistic-based PoF
models have been developed for plastic package corrosion. In
addition, Monte Carlo simulation is another important statistics
tool to handle uncertainties to analyze the robustness margin,
confidence level, and so on [69]. However, as the variation
is often a function of time and operating condition, statistics
itself is not sufficient to interpret the reliability data without
judgment of the assumptions and nonstatistical factors (e.g.,
modification of designs, new components, and so forth).
A systematic DFR procedure specifically applicable to the
design of power electronic products is presented in [9] and
shown in Fig. 10. By implementing the procedure, reliability
is well considered and treated in each development phase
(i.e., concept, design, validation, production, and release),
especially in the design phase. The design of power electronic
converters is mission profile based by taking into account large
parametric variations (e.g., temperature swings, solar irradiance level changes, wind speed fluctuations, load changes,
manufacturing process, and so forth). Important concepts
(except for the PoF approach, which has been discussed in
Section III) and design tools shown in Fig. 10 are discussed
as follows. More detailed discussions are given in [9].
A. Load-Strength Analysis
Load-strength analysis is an important method in the first
step of the design phase shown in Fig. 10. A component
106
Fig. 10.
State-of-the-art reliability design procedure for power electronics.
fails when the applied load exceeds the design strength. The
load refers to a kind of stress (e.g., voltage, cyclic load,
temperature, etc.) and the strength refers to any resisting
physical property (e.g., harness, melting point, adhesion, etc.)
[64]. Load and strength of power electronic components are
allocated within a certain interval, which can be described by a
specific probability density function (e.g., normal distribution).
In addition, the strength of a material or device could be
degraded with time. Theoretically, the probability of failure
can be obtained by analyzing the overlap area between the
load and strength distributions. From another prospective, it
implies that failure could be reduced or eliminated within
service life by either design with an increased strength (i.e.,
an increased design margin), or with a reduced load by control
(i.e., stress control or load management), or both. Practically,
the exact distributions of load and strength are very often
not available, Monte Carlo simulation [64] can be applied to
randomly select samples from each distribution, compare them
and thus roughly estimate the probability of failure.
B. Reliability Prediction Toolbox
Reliability prediction (not based on constant failure rate )
is an important tool to quantify the lifetime, failure level,
and design robustness based on various source of data and

prediction models. Fig. 11 shows a generic prediction toolbox
based on the PoF approach. The toolbox includes statistical
models and lifetime models and various sources of available data (e.g., manufacturer testing data, simulation data,
field data, etc.) for the reliability prediction of individual
components and the overall system. The statistical models
are well presented in [64], whereas the number of physical
based lifetime models available for power electronic components is still limited. Research efforts to both accelerated
testing and advanced multidisciplinary simulations will be
beneficial to obtaining those lifetime models. A more detailed
step-by-step procedure for lifetime prediction is presented
in [70].
To map the reliability from component level to the system
level [3], reliability block diagram (RBD), fault-tree analysis,
(FTA) and state-space analysis (e.g., Markov analysis) are
widely applied as summarized in Table IX.
It should be noted that the tabulated three methods are
conventionally applicable to constant failure rate cases, which
are corresponding to the handbook-based reliability prediction methods. The PoF-based system level reliability prediction is still an open research topic even in microelectronics [16], [18]. Interactions among different failure mech-
Fig. 11.
107
Reliability prediction toolbox for power electronic systems.

TABLE IX
S UMMARY OF S YSTEM L EVEL R ELIABILITY P REDICTION M ETHODS
anisms will bring additional complexity for the analysis.

Therefore, it was argued that the PoF approach is not practical for assessing an entire system in [12]. In addition,
it should be noted that the system reliability depends not
only on components, but also on packaging, interconnects,

manufacturing process, and human errors. The latters need
also to be treated properly for a more accurate reliability
assessment.
108
V. I NTELLIGENT C ONTROL AND M ONITORING OF P OWER

E LECTRONIC S YSTEMS
After power electronic systems have been designed, their
reliability could be further improved through control and
condition monitoring. This is the third important aspect shown
in Fig. 1(b). Among many options, three main actions can be
taken to increase the reliability of power electronic systems:
1) prognostics and health management; 2) active thermal
control for reducing temperature and temperature swing that
are the main killing factors of power devices modules; and 3)
fault-tolerant operation to continue operate the system even in
case of failures. The last can be considered as an alternative
measure with respect to the first two or like the last attempt
to make the system operating if it was not possible to predict
failures or to avoid them. Of course, all these actions entail
important investments in terms of devices, sensors and control
actions, and even request redundancies. All of them shall be
evaluated in terms of cost respect to the specific application.
A. Prognostics and Health Management
The Electronic Prognostics and Health Management
Research Center at the University of Maryland has categorized
the main approaches as: 1) use of fuses and canary devices;
2) built-in-test (BIT); 3) monitoring and reasoning of failure
precursors; and 4) modeling accumulated damage based on
measured life-cycle loads [71].
Apart from the first category that relies on the presence of
devices that fail before the main one (like the canary in a
mine full of hazardous gas), the three other categories need:
1) sensors to check the functionality of a device or circuit,
like in case of BIT, to monitor precursors of the failure
or to measure cycles whose number can be correlated to
failure and 2) data logging to store the data coming from
sensors. Accordingly, Fig. 12 shows the configurations for the
prognostics and health management. The last three categories
can in part overlap with the concept of condition monitoring
that refers to online monitoring of the device. In case of power
semiconductor, this can be done by modifying the gate driver
circuit.
Different sensors can be employed and can be classified
in two categories: 1) ambient sensors (temperature, humidity,
and pollution) and 2) internal sensors (module temperature,
vibration, and electrical parameters). Since the main failure
cause for power module is the junction temperature swing,
measuring it or estimating by means of thermo-sensitive
electrical parameters (TSEPs) is one of the most interesting
challenges [72]. In fact, sensing the junction temperature during converter operation is notoriously difficultdirect access
to chips is prevented by module packaging and dielectric gel,
which therefore limits the optical and physical contact methods
such as the use of infrared cameras or optical fibers.
Electrical methods allow the measurement of temperature
without any physical alteration to a device. However, one disadvantage compared with optical and physical contact methods
is that the latter can be used to measure the temperature
at specific points in the die or module. Electrical methods
generally give an average temperature across the die. For
Fig. 12.
Prognostics and health management of power electronic systems.
instance, the voltage drop across a p-n-junction is known

to vary with temperaturea measurement of this voltage
can therefore be used to derive a temperature solely for the
junction. However, this perhaps does not give a reliable enough
estimation of temperature elsewhere in the devices, such as in
bond wires, solder joints, and so forth.
Data acquisition is very important since once determined the
important quantities to be sensed or estimated, there are issues
related to the amount of data that is possible to store and how
to use those data. Hence, developing a data-acquisition system
taking into account both the ambient and internal quantities
can be a challenge [73].
The goal is to have the real-time operating characteristics
and the health conditions of the components (particularly of
the power modules and capacitors) and of the overall power
converter [74].
This information can be used for two main goals:
1) implement a proactive maintenance plan (i.e., prognostic
maintenance) and 2) provide information for proactive control
schemes that can be a simple load management (i.e., reduction
or sharing of the load among different units) or the more
advanced active thermal control, briefly introduced in the
following.
B. Active Thermal Control
The thermal analysis of power converters, especially in case
of more complex structures, such as multilevel or multicell
ones, reveals that some of the power semiconductor devices
can be more stressed with respect to others and this difference
can be even more evident in some particular conditions like
those caused by system faults [75]. Hence, the possibility to
modify the modulation and control of the power converter
using as a feedback the junction temperature of the most
stressed device is an appealing possibility. The more straightforward approach is manipulating the switching frequency
and the current limit to regulate the losses and prevent overtemperature or to reduce temperature swing [76]. In view of
controlling the junction temperature, estimating it by means
of TSEP, as already mentioned, or using an observer based
Fig. 13.
Active thermal control of the power semiconductor junction
temperature T j by means of y (switching frequency, reactive power, or any
other quantity that can modify the power semiconductor losses). T j is obtained
using an estimator based on TSEP or an observer using measured voltages
and currents.
on FEM modeling of the device [76] are two interesting

alternatives to the more expensive ones using of integrated
sensors in the chip [77].
Fig. 13 shows the general block diagram for active thermal control of the power semiconductors once the junction
temperature is measured or estimated. The easiest way is
to change the switching frequency [78], [79] to control the
junction temperature. In case of parallel power converters that
present some redundancies, it is also possible to share the
load among the different units also in view of controlling the
temperature swing [80]. Another alternative is to circulate
reactive power among the different power converters connected in parallel in a high power converter or in a wind
or PV park to reduce the temperature swing in the most
stressed power semiconductor devices [81]. The idea can be
applied only in case of power converters, such as the neutralpoint-clamped inverters, where there is an uneven distribution
of power losses and as a consequence of the temperature
of the power semiconductor devices, being this difference
even bigger in some particular stressing circumstances like
in the case of sudden power changes (e.g., for a wind gust),
grid faults, or variable atmospheric conditions. The main
drawbacks are higher losses and higher mean temperature
of the most stressed device but also of the other devices.
However, one risk is to move the stress from bond wires to
solder joints.
C. Fault-Tolerant Operation
Working outside the safe operating area leads power
semiconductors to damage. The main failure causes are:
1) fault currents either over-current; 2) short-circuit current or
earth fault current; 3) over-voltage; 4) over-temperature; and
5) cosmic radiation [54]. Other problems may arise because
of the driver of the power semiconductor: malfunctioning
of the driver board, auxiliary power supply failure or dv/dt
disturbance. As a consequence, five main types of faults can be
identified: 1) single switch short-circuit (power semiconductor
is desaturated working as current source or it is a physical
short-circuit; 2) phase-leg short-circuit; 3) single switch opencircuit; 4) single-phase open-circuit; and 5) intermittent gatemisfiring [82]. Fig. 14 shows the first four types of faults.
109
Fig. 14.
Inverter faults considered. (a) Single switch short-circuit.
(b) Phase-leg short-circuit. (c) Single switch open-circuit. (d) Single-phase
open-circuit [83].
Fig. 15.
Switch redundant topology for fault tolerant control [83].
Three levels of protections can prevent failures or limit their

effects: 1) fast (in the switch, 10 ns); 2) slow (outside the
switch); and 3) very slow (system level). Several diagnostic
methods can be used to detect failures and they can be mainly
classified in those used for open- or closed-switch failures
and in software one or hardware one. Generally, software
methods are more suitable in case of open-switch failure,
whereas closed-switch failures need a fast detection because
they can lead to destructive failure of the overall system,
the desaturation one is the most famous [82]. Once a fault
is detected and isolated or online repair is implemented,
the system can continue to operate safely and fault-tolerant
operation can be implemented. There are already several
simple solutions implemented in industry also without any
redundancy if operation with high harmonic content and lower
power level can be accepted [83] as shown in Fig. 15.
Otherwise, redundancies based on paralleling or connecting in
series power semiconductor devices [84] as shown in Fig. 16
are the simplest and most adopted solution in industry and
use of devices that can continue to operate in short-circuit
such as press-pack IGCT can help. The next step in using
redundancy to improve fault-tolerant operation is in adding
extra legs to the power converter. The procedure consists of
the following steps: 1) detection of the faulty leg; 2) stop
the control signal for the two switching drivers of the faulty
leg; 3) trigger the bidirectional switch connecting the new
110
Fig. 16.
Redundancies by connecting IGBTs in parallel or in series [84].
Fig. 19. Common duty ratio, automatic master-slave control scheme with
identical and independent modules for input-series, output-parallel connection [90].
Fig. 17. Fault-tolerant voltage source inverter by adding extra leg for more
electrical aircraft application [86].
show the redundancy achieved by connecting converters in

parallel and in input-series output-parallel, respectively. Both
of the solutions have been proposed and in some cases
implemented in the aforementioned more electric aircraft [88],
[89]. Particularly, connection in series or in parallel power converters or both is already widely adopted in dc/dc converters
and requires the power modules to be identical and capable
of working independently as the case shown in Fig. 19. In
addition, the faulted module(s) must be quickly isolated from
the system, which is not always easy during operation of the
power converter especially taking into account the associated
transients that should be minimized to avoid damage of the
healthy modules while replacing the faulty ones.
VI. C ONCLUSION
Fig. 18.
Redundancy achieved by connecting converters in parallel [89].
leg; and 4) use the control signals of the faulty leg for the
redundant one. The use of fast digital computational devices
[85] and the integration in the power module of the extra leg
and of a thyristor that can survive high energy pulses [86] are
the enabling technologies to isolate a faulty leg and online
substitute it with a healthy one. The latter has been developed
within an EU project for more electric aircraft as shown in
Fig. 17, and this is an interesting sign of the importance of
fault operation capability solutions that should be designed to
guarantee high reliability in safety critical applications.
The last two solutions to guarantee fault-tolerant operation
entail larger investments at system level and in general a significant shift in the power converter design: multiphase power
converters and machines [87], [88] and use of parallel or series
connection of power converters [89], [90]. Figs. 18 and 19
Reliability is an important performance index of power

electronic systems. The status and future trends of the DFR
in power electronics are presented in this paper. A paradigm
shift in reliability research on power electronics has left
simple handbook based on constant failure rate for the PoF
approach and DFR process. Accordingly, three major aspects
of power electronics reliability are discussed: 1) the PoF
analysis of reliability critical components (e.g., IGBT modules
and dc-link capacitors) and two associated study cases; 2)
the state-of-the-art DFR process and robustness validation
for power electronic systems; and 3) the prognostics and
health management, active thermal control, and fault-tolerant
strategies for reliable field operation.
Joint efforts from engineers and scientists in the multiple
disciplines are required to fulfill the research needs and
promote the paradigm shift in reliability research. The major
challenges and opportunities in the research on reliability for
power electronic systems are addressed as follows.
A. Challenges
1) Pervasive and fast implementation of power electronics
in a large variation of applications with all kind of
environmental exposures.
2) Outdated paradigms and lack of understanding in the

DFR process in power electronics.
3) Uncertainties in mission profiles and variations in
strength of components.
4) Increasing electrical/electronic content and complexity.
5) Lack of understanding in failure mechanisms and failure
modes of reliability critical components.
6) Traditional system level reliability prediction methods
are based on constant failure rates. However, physicsof-failure-based component level reliability prediction
results in varying failure level with time.
7) Resource-consuming testing for reliability prediction
and robustness validation from components to entire
systems.
8) End up with ppm level return rates for massmanufactured power electronic products.
9) Higher operating temperature (e.g., with wide bandgap
devices) that challenges the overall reliability and lifetime.
10) Software reliability becomes an issue with more and
more digital controllers are introduced in power electronic systems, which should be treated adequately.
B. Opportunities
1) The research in microelectronics provides an important
foundation for the ongoing and future work in power
electronics, especially from the methodologies point of
view.
2) More and more mission profiles and online monitoring
data from the field are available and accessible.
3) PoF approach provides insights to avoid failures in
power electronic components, circuits, and systems.
4) Active thermal control by controlling the power flow in
power electronic circuits.
5) Component level and system level smart derating operations.
6) Condition monitoring and fault-tolerant design that
allow extended lifetime and reduced failure rate.
7) Emerging semiconductor and capacitor technologies
enable more reliable power electronic components and
systems.
8) Computer-aided automated design software to save time
and cost in the development process.
9) Trends for modular design of power converters and standardized power electronic components and packaging
technologies.
10) With better understanding of failure mechanisms in
power electronics, more failure mechanism specific
accelerated testing could be designed, leading to
improved reliability predictions for targeted applications.
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Huai Wang (S07M12) received the B.Eng.

degree in electrical and electronic engineering from
the Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, China, in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in
Electronic Engineering from the City University of
Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, in 2012.
He has been with Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark, since 2012, where he is currently an
Assistant Professor with the Department of Energy
Technology. He was a Visiting Scientist with the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA, USA, in 2013. He was with the ABB Corporate Research Center, Baden,
Switzerland, in 2009. He has contributed over 40 journal and conference
papers and filed three patents. His current research interests include the
reliability of DC-link capacitors, reliability of power electronic systems, highvoltage DC-DC power converters, time-domain control of converters, and
passive components reduction technologies.
Dr. Wang is a recipient of the five paper awards and project awards from
industry, IEEE, and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. He serves the
Guest Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER E LECTRON ICS Special Issue on Robust Design and Reliability in Power Electronics, and
a Session Chair of various conferences in power electronics.
113
Marco Liserre (S00M02SM07F13) received

the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the Bari Polytechnic, Bari, Italy, in 1998 and
2002, respectively.
He has been an Associate Professor with the Bari
Polytechnic and a Professor of reliable power electronics with Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
He is currently a Full Professor and Chair of power
electronics with Christian-Albrechts-University of
Kiel, Kiel, Germany. He has published 168 technical
papers (44 of them in international peer-reviewed
journals), three chapters of a book, and a book titled Grid Converters for
Photovoltaic and Wind Power Systems (Wiley), which is also translated in
Chinese. He has more than 6000 citations. He has been a Visiting Professor
with Alcala de Henares University, Madrid, Spain.
Dr. Liserre is a member of IAS, PELS, PES, and IES. He is an Associate
Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS , the
IEEE I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS M AGAZINE, and the IEEE T RANSAC TIONS ON I NDUSTRIAL I NFORMATICS . He is currently a Co-Editor-in-Chief
of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER E LECTRONICS and the IEEE
J OURNAL OF E MERGING AND S ELECTED T OPICS IN P OWER E LECTRONICS .
He has been a Founder and an Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE I NDUSTRIAL
E LECTRONICS M AGAZINE, a Founder and the Chairman of the Technical
Committee on Renewable Energy Systems, a Co-Chairman of the International Symposium on Industrial Electronics in 2010, a IES Vice-President
responsible of the publications. He has received the IES 2009 Early Career
Award, the IES 2011 Anthony J. Hornfeck Service Award, the 2011 Industrial
Electronics Magazine Best Paper Award, and the Third Prize Paper Award by
the Industrial Power Converter Committee at ECCE in 2012. He is Senior
Member of the IES AdCom. He has been elevated to the IEEE fellow grade
with the following citation for contributions to grid connection of renewable
energy systems and industrial drives.
Frede Blaabjerg (S86M88SM97F03) was

with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from 1987
to 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he was a Ph.D. Student
with Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. He
became an Assistant Professor in 1992, Associate
Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor of power
electronics and drives in 1998. He has been a part
time Research Leader of wind turbines with the
Research Center Risoe. From 2006 to 2010, he was
the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Science,
and Medicine and became a Visiting Professor with
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2009. His current research interests
include power electronics and its applications such as in wind turbines, PV
systems, reliability, harmonics, and adjustable speed drives.
Dr. Blaabjerg received the 1995 Angelos Award for his contribution in
modulation technique and the Annual Teacher Prize at Aalborg University. In
1998, he received the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award
by the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has received 15 IEEE Prize Paper
Awards and the Prize Paper Award at PELINCEC Poland in 2005. He received
the IEEE PELS Distinguished Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council
Award in 2010, and the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award
2014. He has received a number of major research awards in Denmark. He was
an Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER E LECTRONICS
from 2006 to 2012. He was a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power
Electronics Society from 2005 to 2007 and the IEEE Industry Applications
Society from 2010 to 2011. He was a Chairman of EPE in 2007 and PEDG,
Aalborg, in 2012.
114
Peter de Place Rimmen has been a Reliability Advisor with Danfoss Power Electronics A/S,
Graasten, Denmark, since 2009. He was involved
in research on practical approach implementing reliability in such companies: Vestas Wind System
Research and Development, Aarhus, Denmark, from
2004 to 2009, Grundfos Management Research and
Development from 1997 to 2004, and Bang &
Olufsen Research and Development, Struer, Denmark, from 1988 to 1997. He was with B&O as
a Constructor, Test Engineer, Plant manager, and
Project manager. He has participated in IEC dependability group. He has
together with Nokia trained Nokia Research and Development and Vestas
Research and Development in Design for Quality and Reliability. He is
participating in the CORPE Centre of Reliable Power Electronics, Aalborg
University, participating in ZVEI Facts Sheets Group for Robustness Validation, ECPE Course Instructor, Board Member FAST (Danish Society for
Applied Statistics) and initiated in 2001, and a member of the Danish Six
Sigma ERFA-Group, subgroup of FAST. He holds more than one patent for
Vestas concern Lifetime improvement by thermal control improvements and
for Danfoss, he holds two patents on Dehumidifier for enclosures, and one
patent for monitoring device usage for stress.
John B. Jacobsen was born in Hrning, Denmark,

in 1960. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Aarhus Teknikum, Aarhus,
in 1985. Main work experience is from Grundfos,
Denmark; seven years in hybrid technology development, seven years in hybrid production and more
than ten years as a Chief Specialist in integration
of power electronics into products, i.e. mechatronic
disciplines including thermal management, interconnection, fixation, protection from environment
(impact and humidity), reliability and cost. Optimization criterion being needed performance and reliability at lowest possible
cost. Generalist in understanding value chain and all the disciplines that meet
in the physical mechatronic reality, i.e. function trade-offs in design and
produce ability in production.
Thorkild Kvisgaard was born in Fabjerg, Denmark,

in 1958. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Aarhus Teknikum, Aarhus, in
1984, and the e-M.B.A. degree in innovation and
technology management from Aalborg University,
Aalborg, Denmark, in 2006. Main work experience
is from Scanvaegt International where he was a
Manager of Electronics Development creating solutions for the food industry as well as electronics for
offshore applications.
In 1994, he joined Grundfos and served as a
Product Development Manager in 11 years. After this Thorkild Kvisgaard
changed position in Grundfos to Global Technology Manager. In addition, he
became a member of the Board in Center for Electrical Energy Systems in
2006 and he act as a Chairman of the Center for Intelligent and Efficient Power
Electronics. In the Center Of Reliable Power Electronics Thorkild Kvisgaard
has the role as a Vice Chairman. He has several patents granted and was
nominated for the best Danish patent granted in 1992.
Jrn Landkildehus was born in Ebeltoft, Denmark,

in 1969. He received the M.Sc.E.E. from Aalborg
University, Aalborg, Denmark, in 1995.
Since 1995, he has been with Danfoss Power Electronics, Graasten, Denmark, engaged with development of variable speed drives and research in power
topologies. He has been specializing in the design
for EMC and in recent years been leading reliability
engineering department at Danfoss Power Electronics. His current research interests include development processes, multidisciplinary design techniques,
and design for reliability.

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IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 2, NO.

Transitioning to Physics-of-Failure as a Reliability

OWER electronics enables efficient conversion and

bines (WTs), photovoltaic (PV) systems, air conditions,

Fig. 1. Defined scope in (a) power electronics by William E. Newell in the

end of life. The robustness validation process involves the

A. Reliability in Typical Power Electronic Applications

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

the reliability issues in electronic products for military

The failure rate over operational time is not constant.

Concept for robustness design.

parameters at the end-of-life with certain level of design

converters for WTs [30][32] and inverters for PV systems

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

Among other components, switching devices and capacitors

A. Critical Stressors for Different Power Electronic

Typical stress-strain ( ) curve for a material [55].

Typical catastrophic failure of IGBT modules [60].

Thermal cycling is found to be one of the main drivers for

where k and m are empirically determined constants and N

cycling range and T0 is the portion of T that in the elastic

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

Fig. 7. 2L-BTB converter for a 2.3-MW WT using a permanent magnet

event overstress. Unlike the wear-out failure, the catastrophic

directions: 1) advance the capacitor technology with improved

(low voltage stress)

( medium voltage stress)

(high voltage stress)

Fig. 8. Single-phase grid-connected PV inverter. (a) Simplified structure.

Fig. 9. Simulation results of different capacitors under various ambient

Fig. 8(a) shows a simplified structure of the inverter. The

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

design activities using appropriate analysis tools. Due to the

State-of-the-art reliability design procedure for power electronics.

and design robustness based on various source of data and

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

Reliability prediction toolbox for power electronic systems.

anisms will bring additional complexity for the analysis.

only on components, but also on packaging, interconnects,

V. I NTELLIGENT C ONTROL AND M ONITORING OF P OWER

Prognostics and health management of power electronic systems.

instance, the voltage drop across a p-n-junction is known

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

on FEM modeling of the device [76] are two interesting

Switch redundant topology for fault tolerant control [83].

Three levels of protections can prevent failures or limit their

Redundancies by connecting IGBTs in parallel or in series [84].

show the redundancy achieved by connecting converters in

Redundancy achieved by connecting converters in parallel [89].

Reliability is an important performance index of power

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

2) Outdated paradigms and lack of understanding in the

[4] T. Jomier. (2009, Dec.). Final Public MOET Technical Report, EU

[31] S. S. Smater and A. D. Dominguez-Garcia, A framework for reliability

[55] J. W. McPherson, Reliability Physics and Engineering: Time-to-Failure

WANG et al.: TRANSITIONING TO PHYSICS-OF-FAILURE AS A RELIABILITY DRIVER

[80] M. N. Marwali, J. W. Jung, and A. Keyhani, Control of distributed

Huai Wang (S07M12) received the B.Eng.

cycling range and T0 is the portion of T that in the elastic