Workshops and round tables

According to its tradition, ESREF continues to provide an interactive forum to the participants to define the state-of-the-art of leading subjects in the reliability field.

Workshop Chairs :

Frank. ALTMANN, Fraunhofer IMWS, Germany

Alain BENSOUSSAN, IRT Saint-Exupéry, Thales Alenia Space, France

Worshop WS01 : ECPE “Humidity and Condensation in Power Electronics Systems”

Chair and co-chair: Andreia Rojko (Mitsubishi R&D centre), Michel Piton (Alstom)

Power electronics components, especially power modules but also others like capacitors are not hermetically sealed. They can take up considerable amounts of moisture and degrade over time. Mechanisms like surface discharge, corrosion and ion movement can take place and can eventually lead to a breakdown. In this workshop an overview of critical application conditions and on individual humidity issues occurring in the field will be given. Degradation mechanisms and their modelling and influence ion a lifetime will be reviewed. The applications like wind power and rolling stock will be addressed.

Panel list speakers from: University of Bremen; Infineon; Fraunhofer IWES, KK Wind Solutions; Siemens

Workshop WS02 : Automotive “Advanced Reliability Engineering Methodologies for upcoming Challenges in Automotive”

Chair and co-chair: Ulrich Abelein (Infineon), Matteo Medda (STMicroelectronics)

The megatrends electro mobility, autonomous driving and connectivity are well known drivers for changes in the automotive industry. From a reliability engineering perspective two technological trends are resulting in most of the challenges ahead. First new technologies on package as well as on chip level are coming faster and faster into automotive applications. To realize new functions in the vehicle brand new developed technologies are used in the car. Control and mitigation of risks by new failure mechanisms needs to be embedded in the development process. Second the lifetime requirements for electronics are rising. Operating times are increasing and lead to novel boundary conditions for release of products and technologies. Extended mission profiles are a typical constraint in today’s product release. This workshop will present different aspects of the merger of this to trends in the development and qualification process for automotive electronics. It will discuss different aspects of using mission profiles to develop robust and right fit products. Furthermore methods to assess and improve a certain robustness level to achieve zero failure are presented.

Panel list speakers from: Infineon, ST-Microelectronics, NXP Semiconductors, Audi

Workshop WS03 : Packaging “Reliability of advanced packaging concepts – challenges of FO-WLP and PLP Panel level packaging”

Chair and co-chair: Olaf Wittler (Fraunhofer IZM), ), Rene Rongen (NXP Semiconductors)

Fan-out wafer level package (FO-WLP) technology is gaining increasing interest due to its ability for excellent RF properties, lower cost and enablement of heterogeneous integration. The workshop will take a closer look at this new trend regarding the coming developments within this technology like new structural sizes on the redistribution layers (RDL) or new manufacturing formats like panel based production (panel level packaging PLP). On the other hand the technology is gaining interest in markets with high reliability requirements (i.e. Automotive, …). Therefore the associated reliability risks and potentials will be discussed and requirements for future research identified. The workshop will comprise four invited talks and a panel discussion.

Panel list speakers from: NXP Semiconductors, Nagase Chemtex Corporation, IRT Saint Exupery, Fraunhofer IZM

Workshop WS04 : Wide Band Gap “Applications and Reliability Aspects of commercially available WBG Power devices”

Chair and co-chair: Alain Bensoussan (IRT Saint Exupery), Thomas Detzel (Infineon)

Commercially WBG power devices become available, and engineers get a few more degrees of freedom for product design due to their ability to operate at higher temperatures, voltages, and frequencies compared to their Silicon based counterparts. GaN HEMT transistors have been recently demonstrated for applications in power electronics. WBG-based transistors are currently supposed to be adopted in KW-range power converters for SiC, and 650 V GaN transistors are already available on the market and 1200 V devices are currently under development. The basic idea of this workshop is to discuss the current status of WBG for power electronic applications and discuss the associated reliability issues and lessons learned. A main goal of the workshop could be to identify the application profiles and reliability requirements for High Reliability applications, e.g. in the aeronautics and space.

Panel list speakers from: ST-Microelectronics, Infineon, Thales Alenia Space, EPC Corp, Freebird Semiconductor Corporation, HIREX Engineering, EXAGAN, University of Padova

Workshop WS05 : DSM “New disruptive DSM technologies for Aeronautics and Space Applications: Role, Attributes, Challenges, Pitfalls, and Interaction with Quality and Reliability goals”

Chair and co-chair: Alain Bensoussan (IRT), Fabio Coccetti (IRT)

Background High Power computing and other products are driving towards DSM based technology solutions in scaled nodes. Market segments targeted towards low power, low cost and digital or RF are eyeing the new technology roadmap for future products. VLSI failures can be attributed to the failure of a given material under stress, e.g. dielectric breakdown, electromigration, corrosion, fractured intermetallic, chip-outs, cracked passivation, broken pins, cracked packages, etc. We cannot afford uncertainty of systems based on various domains including Aeronautics, More Electrical Aircraft, Space, Automotive and autonomous vehicles relying on hundreds of electronic devices per vehicle and employing fleets of thousands. Rate of degradation is observed also to depend on many environment parameters both intrinsic and extrinsic due to:

• Original material and geometry arrangement into devices.
• Internal and external environment conditions named “stressors” like biasing (voltage, current, power dissipation, transient, signal level), temperature (low, high, constant, variable), irradiation levels (particles, X-ray, g-ray), humidity, other pollution gases, etc

Panel members will focus on some following issues:

• In very complex new technology, it is observed that failure mechanisms can be accelerated simultaneously. What if multiple failure mechanisms are coexisting? What is the impact on the accelerating factor (AF) in such complex mixed model? How to deal with multiple stresses?
• Why aging and reliability can no longer be satisfied in DSM with “comfortable” marging for Hi-Rel applications?
• How design for reliability and circuit aging are impacted?
• How FIDES and PISTIS programs will answer such issues in disruptive technologies (e.g. for example AAG)?
• What are the Industry needs in term of reliability prediction in harsh environment?

Panel list speakers from: Infineon, DGA, THALES, AIRBUS, CNES, ISEN, Ariel University of Israel