Key Research Areas

Apart from ensuring the best possible thermal system design, understanding thermomechanical behavior on package, component and module levels is critical for ensuring overall system reliability. Thermally and thermo-mechanically induced failure mechanisms can lead to premature failure and limit lifetime.

Smaller package dimension result in shorter diffusion outlets for external humidity stress. This can result in increased electro-chemical degradation mechanisms, that usually lead to failure and thus a shorter lifetime of the electrical circuits. For this reason it is very important that crucial parameters such as (extreme) operating conditions with system-level impact (e.g. operating temperatures and humidity) are already modeled and then optimized in the early stages of the design process. The aim is maximizing reliability while keeping cost and effort low.

• Selection and qualification of suitable materials
• Failure and damage analysis
• Test benches for combined and accelerated lifetime testing (vibration, temperature, temperature cycling, moisture
• In-house testing and characterization of prototypes
• Modelling failure mechanisms of new material combinations
• Simulation for cost-efficient design changes and their potential for success compared to existing geometries
• Investigating driving forces and influence parameters of failure mechanisms relating to corrosion and migration effects
• Improving design with view to harsh environments
• Metallography, EBSD, FIB, REM, EDX
• Ultrasonic and X-ray microscopy, as well as X-ray CT
• Quality and reliability analysis
• Condition monitoring concepts derived from system and failure analyses