Failures originated from defects of IGBTs used for electrical power application

As high-power semiconductor devices, IGBTs are widely used in electrical power application, the reliability of which have been paid attention by both manufacturers and end users. The defects of IGBTs on the hierarchy of die, which could be originated from wafer manufacturing and packaging process, may cause failure during testing and normal working conditions. Herein, typical failure analysis cases based on systematic procedures were chosen to illustrate the reason underneath, revealing defects of IGBTs die, such as micro-cracks in dielectric layer may originated from deposition process, and mechanical damage in passivation layer probably due to crimping process, could result in failures of IGBTs that weaken the reliability, which should be avoided during the fabrication via strict quality control.