A Hybrid Integrated Power Electronic Module Based On

Pressure Contact Technology

Xiaoyu He, Xiangjun Zeng, Xu Yang, Zhaoan Wang

Xi'an Jiaotong University
Power Electronics & Renewable Energy Research Center
#28 West of Xianning Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi, P.R.China, 710049
Tel and Fax: 86-29-82665223
Email: hxy_xjtugsina.com

Abstract- This paper presents a simple, wireless-bond power Control & Drive ICs
electronics packaging technology utilizing spring pressure PCB
contact interconnect technique. The pressure contact spring is Emitter Plate
made of beryllium-copper alloy with small outline and excellent BeCu Spring
stress performance. Based on the technique, a 4 kW half-bridge Copper Pad
power inverter module is fabricated. Electrical, thermal and DBC
mechanical test results of the packaged device are reported. I-
Baseplate
Interconnection Lin

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1: The cross section of the pressure contact cell

Currently, wire bond interconnection technique is widely
used in commercial power electronic modules. But nearly all II MATERIALS DESIGN AND PACKAGE ISSUE
of the modules have the reliability problems with a short
lifetime. Coupled electrical, thermal and mechanical effects A. Material selection
can lead to wire lifting which is an unrepairable mechanical Beryllium-Copper (BeCu) alloy is selected as the material
damage for power modules.
Many efforts are taken to find alternative interconnection for spring because it has high strength, high fatigue-resistant
technologies to replace wire bond and overcome the ability and high thermal conductivity. Also the spring made
reliability problem. Some methods are proposed such as ofreCs c erta flexblt thagt edcng thermal
Power Overlay [1], Flip Chip [2], MPIPPS [3], Dimple-Array stress, compare to other 3D packaging technologies. The
[4] and Embedded Power [5] technologies. But the spring is gold-plated so as to reduce electrical resistance and
fabrication of all above novel techniques is complex can be prevent the spring from corroding and oxidizing.
time consuming and cost [4].
very Copper with gold-plated is selected as the material for
vrery
Pressure .
contact assembly structure has been
urcotactassm s
. to
applied transition pad interconnection
spring. Because of its high between
thermal IGBT chip and low
conductivity, the
high has semiconduo d in
powerbeen
GTOs for a long time and its reliability proved s sh aelectrical resistance and ductile to endure thermal stress.
various situations [6]. B. Shape design of the spring
A novel spring pressure contact interconnection technique Fig.2 shows the spring model. It is made by a 0.15mm
which is used in the medium power stage IGBTs is proposed thick and 6mm wide Beryllium-Copper type and has the
in this work. Fig. 1 shows an IGBT cell structure adopting the similar shape as a bubble to provide high elastic. A 300C
spring pressure contact interconnection technique. A and 2 hours TSR (Time Stress Relief) process will bring
1200V/75A IGBT die is soldered on a DBC substrate; then perfect stress performance.
another 8mmx8mmx0.8mm copper pad is placed on the
emitter area of the IGBT die for transition, the pad is
gold-plated and polished, fixed on the IGBT chip with
silicone adhesive in flank; next a spring made of
beryllium-copper alloy will be soldered on the top plate of
electrode and pressed on the copper pad. Pressure is provided
 III. CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS OF SPRING
CONTACT TECHNIQUE
A. Mechanical analysis
Distribution of stress on the spring nodes with 3D FEM
(finite element method) using ANSYS software is shown in
Fig.3. The boundary conditions applied on the keypoints
forced all nodes of spring moving direction and displacement.
Simulation results clarified that the largest stress occurs on
the profile surface of the spring.
all parts, it is comprised of the spring's bulk resistance (RAB),
the contact resistance between the spring and the copper pad
(RBc) and the contact resistance between the pad and
Al-sputtered surface of dies (RCD). From Fig.5, it can be seen
that the contact resistance RCD is the highest part.
6
5
4.5.
2

0
IRAB R~BC R&D R~AD
Fig. 5: Contact resistance of each part
Fig.6 shows the relationship of conducted voltage drop
(a) Model of the spring (b) Meshing attribute versus current for the spring pressure contact module and a
wire bond module. The voltage drop ofthe spring module is a
little higher than the wire bond module basically because of
the contact resistance RCD.
2A
1 1 Pi 1,1Pe ,oitactrno(ltie

2 \Xre bond inodide

(c) Stress distribution under (d) Stress distribution under _ __ ___

the force of ION the force of 40N
Fig. 3: Stress distribution on the spring
Fig.4 shows the relationship between pressure and 04a
displacement on a spring sample. The largest displacement Ic (A)
that spring can endure is about 3mm, generate by the force of
40N. But in the pressure contact IPEM, displacement of
spring is about only 2.5mm, because the margin for C. Thermal analysis
thermal-mechanical stress must be considered on the junction Compared to the wire bond technique, pressure contact
temperature.Coprdtthwiebntehiu,pesecnat
temperature._ ___ package has an additional thermal path the
beryllium-copper alloy spring. To evaluate the thermal
40 + performance of the spring, a thermal experiment was carried
out to measure the temperature distribution of the module. A
4 30 , 1 1 total of five thermocouples were mounted in the pressure
contact module. The module was mounted onto an Al
210= heatsink with natural-air cooling approach and the ambient
10
_ 1_ temperature was 33 C. The 25.6W power dissipation was
uniformly applied to the IGBT die. After the temperature
0 reached steady state, the thermocouples indicated that the
0 I1Jh2p3em,i 4 temperature on the top surface ofthe spring was 58C, on the
Fig. 4: Characteristic of force versus displacement profile surface ofthe spring was 60.5 C, on the bottom ofthe
spring was 61.3 'C, at the center point ofthe baseplate surface
B. Contact resistance analysis was 56.5 C and on the edge of the module was 51.5 C.
A difficult problem of the spring pressure contact For a further detection of pressure contact thermal
technique is contact resistance. The electrical performance of performance, a 3D model was developed using ANSYS
the pressure contact module is seriously affected by contact under the conditions that used for previous thermal
resistance. The resistance is related to environment experiment. Using this geometry model, overall temperature
temperature, smooth finish of the spring and stress intensity, distribution of the module is shown in Fig.7. The calculated
Fig.5 illustrates measured resistance of each part between result shows that the peak temperature of the IGBT chip is
the topside emitter plate and the surface of IGBT chip as 62.934C.
shown in Fig. 1. In Fig.5, RAD presents the total resistance of
 |
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Ik I0
Fig. 7: Temperature distribution of pressure contact structure
Pressure contact structure makes double side cooling
possible. There are two conduct paths in the module. One is
from the IGBT chip to the topplate through the spring
vertically; the other is from the die to the basepalte through
the DBC substrate. Although the spring provides an
additional thermal path out of the top of the module, but the
7

l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i

Fig. 9: Calculated results of partial equivalent inductance

IGBT is switching on or off, the high di/dt and parasitic
inductance will cause large voltage spike and the parasitic
resonance causes a high frequency current ringing in the
circuit. Because the load inductance, the DC bus parasitic
inductance and the impedance of the DC voltage source
shows large resistance to the high frequency current, the
spring is a long and high thermal resistance path. The DBC current ringing become a circulating current flowing between
substrate is the main power dissipation path because of the bypass capacitor and power devices. Fig. 10 shows the high
very short length, large contact area and high thermal frequency current track in the half-bridge inverter topology.
conductive ability. The FEM thermal analysis indicated that
the thermal resistance of the spring is approximately 43.8C -4
/W, compared to the DBC of 0.14 C/W. Only 0.4% heat can A Z\
be removed through the spring and the DBC substrate ___
dissipates about 99.6% of total heat.
D. Parasitic inductance A
The parasitic inductance of the Be-Cu alloy spring was
evaluated through parasitic inductance extraction and circuit
simulation using Maxwell 3D software. Fig.8(a) shows the Fig. 10: Half-bridge inverter circuit
geometry model for Ansoft simulation of circuit inductance Since electromagnetic interference is caused by high
which consist of line A, B, C and spring D. The circuit frequency voltage or current component, according to the
inductance L could be got from simulation results. above analysis, it is concluded that the high frequency
Self-inductance of each line(LA, LB, Lc) and mutual circulating current flowing through power devices and
inductance between line A and B(MAB) were calculated bypass capacitor is the main magnetic field disturbance
through PEEC method[7] [8]. The mutual inductance source and the parasitic inductance of high frequency current
between line C and spring D was ignored for the long circuit appears to be one of the most important fundamental
distance. So the partial equivalent inductance of spring (LD) factors for the electrical performance of the module.
was calculated under the equation
=DL-LA-LB-Lc+2MAB (1).........
In the samne way, the wire bond interconnection was also

Fig.8(b).

(a)pressure contact module (b)Wire bond module

^ ^ ~~~~~~~~~Fig.
ll: High frequency current circuit mode
l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~n order to extract the parasitic inductance of critical loop
C t_ B D w ~~~~~~~mentioned above, analysis was done through Ansoft
(a)spring circuit (b)Al wire circuit Maxwell 3D geometrical simulation as shown in Fig.l11.
Bypass capacitor could be regarded as short circuit because
Fig. 8: Simulation modeof itS low impedance for high frequency current. In the same
Fig.9 shows the calculated partial equivalent inductance of way, the wire bond module was also modeled. The
spring related to different frequency. In contrast to the Al calculation results are listed in table I, for comparison with
wires, the account of parasitic inductance of the spring is a the wire bond module's data.
little bigger. It is obviously that the pressure contact module shows a
Fig. 10 shows a half-bridge inverter circuit and a low ESL remarkable increment, about 3 times than the amount of the
bypass capacitor is connected across DC bus. When the wire bond module in packing parasitic inductance of high
frequency circuit.
TABLE I P
CALCULATION RESULTS
frequency(MI-z) 0.1 1 10 100 An~ 4
Wire bondmodule(nH) 51.71 50.946 50.819 50.791 l 1
Pressure contact module(nH) 143.03 142.86 142.77 142.76 2 13
_E_ul

It is known from Fig.9 that the increment is not caused byf

the spring itself. The parasitic inductance is strongly related Qd
to the packing structure. In pressure contact module, for +'S fA
fabricating easily, low-inductance design method which used D
commonly in commercial IGBT modules is not employed. In C d2_ -A l|
future, the structure design of pressure contact module would
be optimized, for the reduction of parasitic inductance.
The electrical performance of the pressure contact module Th2 = r5 14
was also experimentally evaluated. The experiment circuit is 6 1:
shown in Fig. 10 and DC bus voltage is 50V. Fig. 12 (a) and (b) 1l
MAW

present the switching off voltage waveforms. In two kinds of

modules, high frequency current ring in the bypass capacitor.
The overshoot voltage are 60V (wire bond module) and 75V + ol
M +15V=B N

(pressure contact module). The current ring frequencies are Gi'.4-B

11.1MHz and 8.92MHz. These tests show the difference
between two modules in switching performance. These
differences in transient waveforms are attributed to the Fig. 13: Circuit schematic for the pressure contact IPEM
different packing structures of the modules.

ID~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(a) Pressure contact module (b)Wire bond module

Fig. 12: Switching off waveforms

IV. CONFIGURATION DESCRIPTIONS OF IPEM

The pressure contact technique has been implemented in
an IPEM. Fig. 13 shows the circuit diagram of the module.
The half-bridge power switching stage is composed of two
IGBTs and two FREDs using pressure contact technique.
HCLP-316J is employed as high and low side gate drivers.
The driving ICs include function of over current protection
and optical coupling isolation inside.
The IPEM is about 92.8mm length, 34mm wide and 30mm
high. The module has high levels of integration with power
semiconductor devices, gate drivers and protection circuits in
it. Two IGBT (1200V, 75A) chips and two diodes (1200V,
1 OOA) chips are integrated in this module as demonstrated in
Fig.14.
Fig. 14: The photograph of IPEM
V. ELECTRICAL TESTING RESULTS
A. Reliability evaluation
The CTE mismatching between silicon chip and Al wire in
the wire bond module is one of the most important issues
from the reliability point of view. In the pressure contact
module, the spring in elastic range is able to endure the
thermo-mechanical stress and the stress concentration on the
top surface of the IGBT die vanished.
Thermal cycling test has been conducted to verify the
reliability of the pressure contact packaging. The IGBT
module was placed to the temperature changing from -50~C
to 150Cwith the rate of cycle/30 minutes. Tektronix 371B
programmable high power curve tracer was used to do the
static test. Fig. 15 shows the saturation characteristics curves
of pressure contact packaged module before and after 1000
thermal cycles.
The maximum value of Vce was about 1400V before
thermal cycling and did not changed obviously after 1000 [2] Xingsheng Liu, Xiukuan Jing, and Guo-Quan Lu,
cycles. Contrast to the original value the curve was evident "Chip-scale Packaging of Power Devices and its
partial nonlinear and Vce increased little in the saturation Application in Integrated Power Electronics Module ",
area until 1000 cycles. Proceedings of IEEE ECTC Conference , Las Vegas,
Tektr- 371B 2a05/03/31 16:34
NV pp. 290-296, May, 2000.
Tek--ni 371B 200C/03/31 I6:03 Tn ^

= = (f,
=====VfD0V
= = === = VERT/DIIV0 R lA

, [3] S. Haque, K Xing, G-Q. Lu, D. J. Nelson, D. Borojevic

d

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _H0RlZ/2DIV
I_ __
_ _ HR,and F.C. Lee, "Packaging for Thermal Management of
-" CPower Electronics Building Blocks Using Metal Posts
_------f:t
- _Interconnected
m - - - -1
Parallel Plate Structure", Proceedings of
the Sixth Intersociety Conference on Thermal and
IICTIJ
=7Thermal-mechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems,
,.

Tektro (a371B
(a) characteristics
200C,06/1012:36
VERTT/DIV
1000 thermal cycles 2aa5/0,31013:01
beforeTek--i371B
I | IVERT/DIV
[4] S. Wen, et al, " Dimple-Array Interconnect Technique
CURSOR
20lf
I'URRI)I III II
10

IIIfor Packaging Power Semiconductor Devices and

I I I I I I IHRIZ/200V | |DIV Modules ", Proceedings of Intemational Symposium on
Power Devices and ICs, Osaka, pp. 69-74, 2001.
PIER IFII
SP[5] Z.X. Liang, F. C. Lee, G-Q. Lu, and D. Borojevic,
[,OOO.v -5"Embedded Power -a multilayer integration technology
for packaging of IPEMs and PEBBs", Proceedings of
'S.0: | fCLEO |%oCOLCRInternatioal
=33.7 Worshop on Integrated Power Packaging,
(b) characteristics after 1000 thermal cycles Waltham, MA, pp.41-45, July 14-16, 2000
Fig. 15: Saturation characteristics curves of module [6] Matsuda. H, Hiyoshi. M, Kawamura. N, "Pressure
contact assembly technology of high power devices",
B. Power stage result Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, pp: 17 - 24,
An experimental evaluation of the power stage test results 26-29 May 1997.
are shown in Fig. 16. Including load voltage waveform and [7] Leferink, F.B.J. "Inductance calculations: methods and
load current wave form of the half-bridge inverter based on equations", IEEE International Symposium
the pressure contact IPEM. The output voltage is about 1 1OV Electromagnetic Compatibility, Atlanta, USA, pp. 16-22,
and the output current is about 35.8A which has reached the 1995
design goal of 4kW. After power stage test, the pressure [8] Ruehli, A.; Paul, C.; Garrett, J. "Inductance calculations
contact IPEM is still functional and no evident failure could using partial inductances and macromodels", IEEE
be detected. International Symposium Electromagnetic
Compatibility, Atlanta, USA, pp. 23-28, 1995.
Hawik pu11
t
Ou A Icmrent

R L
C

Fig. 16: Power stage results

VI. CONCLUSION
A novel pressure contact interconnect method with the
beryllium-copper spring has been preliminarily investigated
in this paper. The stress characterization ofthe spring and the
pressure contact performance are interested. The experiment
result shows that this method is simple enough and feasible to
substitute wire bond technique in medium power IGBT
modules or IPEMs.

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