In-situ bond wire health monitoring circuit for IGBT power modules

IGBT power module field reliability prediction methods are continuously being developed to increase availability and reduce system downtime. This paper presents a precursor parameter in-situ monitoring methodology for health diagnosis and lifetime estimation with a focus on wire bond interconnections. The bond wire degradation is typically an end-of-life phenomenon and indicates an impending final breakdown. A novel in-situ health monitoring circuit capable of accurately detecting the wire bond interconnection degradation in IGBT modules is implemented. This circuit can be integrated as part of an electric drive allowing the assessment of the devices in a three phase inverter drive in real application. This can improve the understating of the wire bond's degradation behaviour in both lab environment and field applications. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed method.