Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105

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Microelectronics Reliability
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/microrel

Prognostics of IGBT modules based on the approach of particle filtering T

a,⁎ a,b
Yizhou Lu , Aris Christou
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
b
Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the present work, a prognostic model combining model-based and data-driven techniques was developed and
Prognostics validated for dynamic life prediction of insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules under power cycling
RUL prediction conditions. The prognostic model integrates both anomaly detection based on semi-supervised machine learning
IGBT and remaining useful life (RUL) estimation based on the particle filter (PF) approach. A range of healthy failure
Particle filter
precursor data was predefined as labeled training data and machine learning techniques including principal
Sequential importance resampling
Anomaly detection
component analysis (PCA) for feature extraction, and k-means clustering for anomaly detection were im-
plemented. The clustering technique partitioned the predefined healthy data points into healthy clusters using a
singular-value-weighted distance measure. The safety margin between a healthy distribution of distances be-
tween healthy data points within each cluster, and a test distribution of distances between a test data point and
all the healthy data points within each cluster, was calculated to determine the affiliation of a test data point to
the healthy cluster. A failure precursor process model incorporating the crack propagation physics law, the Paris
Equation, and a measurement model was developed facilitating a sampling importance resampling (SIR) filter
for RUL estimation. The developed prognostic model was validated on the degradation data from literature
sources reporting IGBT power cycling test results to demonstrate its robustness.

1. Introduction
The applications of power electronic converters can be found in
multiple industrial sectors which require high levels of reliability [1].
Power electronic modules (PEMs) are the critical components of power
converters, whose packages provide housing and fixtures for power
devices and facilitate heat dissipation [2]. Power electronics, especially
the package of PEMs in power converters play a crucial role in the re-
liability of power converters and even the entire systems. In wind tur-
bines, failures due to power electronics in power converters make up
over 10% of all the failures [3]. In electric motor drives, semiconductor
and package-related failures like solder failure account for 34% of all
power converter failures [4]. A survey on various industries including
aerospace, automotive, marine equipment, utility power supplies, etc.,
showed that insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) takes up 42%,
being the most common type of power devices in the surveyed in-
dustrial applications [5]. The package reliability of IGBT modules has
been the topic of many studies, and it is also the concern of the present
work.
The general internal structure of the IGBT module package is shown
in Fig. 1. The semiconductor dies (silicon) are soldered to an insulating
direct bonded copper substrate, which is a three-level substrate with the
top and the bottom layer made of copper, and the intermediate layer
made of a ceramic. The substrate is soldered to a base plate, which is
usually attached to a heat sink. During operation, the loading condi-
tions and consequently the temperature profile of power converters are
often highly dynamic [6], and heat generated from the Si chips is
conducted through the multi-layer stacking package structure for dis-
sipation. The interfaces between adjacent layers, whose materials have
very different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs), are therefore
subject to a wide range of temperature variation. This may lead to stress
concentration and crack initiation near these interfaces. As a result,
several fatigue-related failure modes arise from the cumulative effect of
dynamic loading conditions. It was reported that the most common
ones of these failure modes were bond wire lift-off and fatigue of solder
interconnects [7–9].
In a multi-chip IGBT module, there could be hundreds of bond wires
provided the electrical interconnection between the active area of
semiconductor devices (IGBT and freewheeling diodes) and other
components (passive) in the module, as is shown in Fig. 1. IGBT and
diode chips are the heat sources during the power module operation.
The large temperature swing and the self-heating of the wires due to
current flow, combined with the significant CTE mismatches between
bond wire metals and the bond pads located on the Si die, result in high

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lvyz123@umd.edu (Y. Lu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2018.11.012
Received 20 December 2017; Received in revised form 18 June 2018; Accepted 22 November 2018
Available online 01 December 2018
0026-2714/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Lu, A. Christou
Bond Wires
Fig. 1. Cross-sectional views of standard module package for IGBTs.
A cross-sectional view of the standard module package for IGBTs.
susceptibility of these bond wires to fatigue damage. The solder inter-
connect degradation has a similar root cause, associated with the CTE
mismatches between the solder material and silicon chip or substrate.
An important premise in this paper is that the parametric failure of
IGBT modules under dynamic loading conditions are mainly due to
bond wire lift-off at the bond pads of the IGBT and diode die. The solder
interconnect fatigue mechanism also results in an increase in junction-
to-case thermal resistance of the IGBT module, which also increases the
die junction temperature further accelerating bond wire lift-off.
A power module's capability to sustain dynamic loading conditions
is determined through power cycling tests. In field applications, the
variations of loading profiles are often random and unpredictable. In
wind turbine applications, for example, varying wind speeds in the
marine environment lead to dynamic loading profiles that require in-
tensive monitoring and measurements for evaluation [10], which can
be both time-consuming and costly to perform, and is not within the
scope of the present work. Power cycling tests for dynamic loading in
the present investigation were carried out under highly accelerated
conditions and by eliminating any random variations in loads.
The basic goal of the present work is to develop a prognostic model
combining both model-based and data-driven techniques and to vali-
date it for remaining useful life (RUL) estimation for the selected IGBT
modules. State-of-the-art reliability prediction techniques have been
switching from relying on historical field data to relying on in-situ
operational and environmental data, and the most promising of such
techniques is prognostics and health management (PHM) [11]. The
purpose of PHM is to detect signs of failures, provide warnings in ad-
vance, and forecast maintenance. In this sense, the successful im-
plementation of PHM depends heavily on the availability of models
with capability in both fault detection and lifetime prediction. In the
present work, a robust and comprehensive model integrating both fault
diagnosis based on machine learning and lifetime prediction based on
particle filter approach is developed. Particle filter (PF) is a state-of-the-
art Bayesian inference approach solving nonlinear state estimation
problems. Applications of particle filter in the field of prognostics in-
clude state-of-health estimation of batteries [12–15], power electronic
modules [16–18], LED lumen maintenance [19] and mechanical or
structural components like helicopter gear plates [20]. Different model-
based and data-driven approaches were implemented and compared in
the prognostics of power electronic devices, including Gaussian process
regression, extended Kalman filter and particle filter, among which
particle filter has been demonstrated to give the most accurate results
[16]. Therefore, the robustness of the PF approach in prognostics of
power electronics devices have been demonstrated.
Prognostic approaches are either model-based or data-driven [21].
Model-based approaches require that accurate mathematical and phy-
sical models can be developed from first principles [22]. Data-driven
approaches use statistical and probabilistic techniques based on
97
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
historical information and routinely monitored data obtained from the
systems to estimate RUL [23,24]. Data-driven approaches are ad-
vantageous over model-based approaches for complex systems and
where accurate modeling from first principles becomes infeasible [23].
For IGBT modules, the fundamental physics-of-failure of typical pack-
aged components under power cycling conditions are well understood.
Nevertheless, the complexity and variability of the design and materials
of the module architecture, as well as the variability of the power cy-
cling conditions, introduce uncertainties in the actual degradation be-
havior. Therefore, the developed model makes a fusion of both types of
prognostic approaches. It is based on the PF approach utilizing the in-
situ monitored data, while the physics-of-failure knowledge was in-
tegrated in the non-linear process model for RUL prediction. A classic
type of PF, the sampling importance resampling (SIR) filter was im-
plemented on the degradation data collected from open literature
sources reporting IGBT power cycling test results [25–27]. It is em-
phasized that the reported failure mechanism reported from tests per-
formed on different IGBT modules and under power cycle loads, was
consistently bond wire failure which further confirmed the criticality of
bond wires in the module package reliability.
2. Particle filter
The basic idea of a particle filter is to represent the posterior
probability density function with a large number of particles and their
associated weights, which are updated iteratively at every time step.
The sequential importance sampling (SIS) is the most basic particle
filter, with a number of variants such as the SIR filter, the auxiliary
sampling importance resampling (ASIR) filter and the regularized par-
ticle filter (RPF), developed to solve the issue of degeneracy in SIS filter.
Usually after several iterations, all but very few weights tend to be zero,
leading to a severe loss of particle diversity in predictions [28]. The two
general solutions are to choose the proper proposed distribution, and
the implementation of resampling. A classic example of addressing the
degeneracy issue based on resampling is the SIR filter, which is the most
prevalent filter used in prognostics [29]. The standard formulation and
procedure of the SIR filter is given in four steps below [30].
1) Initialization
Let k be the number of time steps in sequence. To initialize, set
k = 0 and generate a set of N particles x0i, i = 1, 2, …, N, from the prior
distribution of the state variable x at t = 0, denoted p(x0).
2) Importance sampling and calculation of weights
At each time step k, generate a set of particles xki from the proposal
distribution q(xki| x0:k−1i, z0:k), where z0:k are the series of
Y. Lu, A. Christou
measurements of the state. In the SIR filter, define q(xki|x0:k−1i,
z0:k) = p(xki|xk−1i), which is the conditional distribution of xki given
the set of particles in the previous step xk−1i. Assign each particle a
weight based on Eq. (1) below:
p z k | xki ) p (xki | xki − 1 )
ωki = ωki − 1 p (z k | xki − 1) = ωki − 1 (
q (xki | xki − 1, z k )
Normalize the weights:
ωki
ωki = N
∑i = 1 ωki
3) Resampling
If the effective sample size Neff calculated using Eq. (3) is below the
given threshold Nth, then resampling is performed. Commonly,
Nth = 2/3 N is taken as the threshold.
1
Neff ≈ N more desirable and easier to implement.
∑i = 1 (ωki )2 (3)
∼i i
Generate N new particles x k from the current particle set xk , and
replace xki with the new set. The weights of the new set are assumed to
be equally distributed.
∼i = 1
ω module estimating the RUL of the faulty system, but the discussion on
k
N (4)
4) State prediction
Calculate the estimated state 
xk using Eq. (5):
N and robustness of the anomaly detection technique. Previous works on

xk = ∑ ω∼ki ∼x ki
i=1
3. Prognostic model development
The development of the prognostic model in the present work in-
volved three steps: (i) the development of a novel anomaly detection
model, (ii) the development of a non-linear process model and (iii) a
measurement model for PF-based RUL prediction. The first step to the
formulation of these models was the definition of the state variable for
the particle filter, called failure precursor in the context of reliability
prediction. A failure precursor is a variable that can clearly identify and
allows real-time tracking of a specific type of degradation. IGBT is a
three-terminal power electronic device with a collector, a gate and an
emitter. It is turned on by applying a positive gate-emitter voltage VGE
greater than the threshold voltage Vth. As a result, some current flows
from the collector to the emitter, denoted IC. In an IGBT module, the
current flows not only through multiple semiconductor die but through
passive components as well as through interconnects such as bond
wires. The net result is an on-state forward voltage drop Vforward be-
tween the collector and emitter terminals of the module. In power cy-
cling tests, the current IC is typically kept constant, and hence as bond
wire degradation develops, the on-state resistance of the module in-
creases, resulting in an increase in Vforward. Therefore, Vforward is com-
monly used to indicate degradation in the package-related failures of
IGBT modules and it was selected as the failure precursor in the present
work as well. The threshold of device failure was a 5% increase in
Vforward over the upper bound of a pre-defined healthy data interval,
which will be discussed in the subsequent anomaly detection technique
part. Dramatic increases in Vforward can be expected after this threshold
because of the increasing pace of bond wire detachments. The func-
tional failure of the device under test (DUT) occurs when enough bond
wires detach to completely cut off the electrical connection in the
module. The following subsections will discuss the anomaly detection
and process model development in detail, based on the failure precursor
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
and failure threshold level.
A. Anomaly detection technique
Fault detection is an integral part of the PHM cycle because it is the
basis of troubleshooting as well as maintenance decision support.
(1) Practically, it is also required to initiate RUL prediction. Similar to
prognostic approaches, fault detection techniques can also be categor-
ized into two types: model-based and data-driven. The model-based
techniques are also based on first principles, while data-driven techni-
(2) ques rely on data processing and knowledge-based methodologies to
discover data anomalies [31]. For bond wire lift-off, the failure physics
behind fault initiation and identification is fatigue-induced void and
crack initiation, which is more complex than that of crack propagation.
A complete three step fatigue model is much more difficult to imple-
ment for the fault detection process since the crack initiation is based
on knowledge of pre-existing material defects in the bond wire or bond
pad. A pure data-driven fault detection, or data anomaly detection, is
Nevertheless, very few publications so far have integrated an
anomaly detection technique in the PF-based prognostics. Orchard et al.
[20,31] proposed an on-line PF framework for anomaly detection and
time-to-failure prediction by implementing a fault detection and iden-
tification (FDI) module for anomaly detection and a failure prognostic
the FDI module was limited. A fundamental challenge of integrating
anomaly detection with the RUL prediction lies in the difficulties in the
development of a valid anomaly detection technique itself, especially
the criterion for the establishment of identifying a test data point as an
anomaly. In practice, this criterion is determinant for the effectiveness
prognostics [16,17,32,33] empirically selected a single threshold in the
(5)
variations of the failure precursors or a specific anomaly detector as the
criterion of fault detection. The present work proposes a unique cri-
terion of anomaly identification by computing safety margins based on
two distributions of distances, as will be discussed later.
Anomaly detection typically requires some machine learning tech-
niques to justify whether a test data point shows some anomalous be-
havior compared with known healthy or previously observed data,
using the features extracted from the raw data. Machine learning al-
gorithms can generally be categorized into supervised learning, semi-
supervised learning and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning is
based a fully-labeled training dataset, including nominal or healthy
data and all types of anomalous data, while unsupervised learning
works with no labeled training data. Semi-supervised learning, used in
the present work, stands halfway between supervised and unsupervised
learning, with a mixture of labeled and unlabeled training data [34]. It
is demonstrated in the machine learning literature to reach a compro-
mise between the availability of fully-labeled training data and the
learning accuracy [35]. Recent investigations in a variety of domains
have utilized semi-supervised learning techniques for anomaly detec-
tion. Ashfaq et al. [36] proposed a fuzziness based semi-supervised
learning approach with the supervised learning approach of single
hidden layer feed-forward neural network (SLFN) assisted by unlabeled
samples to improve the classifier's performance for the intrusion de-
tection systems in cyber security. The experimental results of intrusion
detection on an evaluation dataset based on this approach showed that
unlabeled samples contributed enormously to improve the classifier's
performance compared to existing classifiers like naive bayes, support
vector machine, etc. Zhao et al. [37] proposed a graph-based semi-su-
pervised learning model utilizing a few labeled training data for fault
detection in solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays. The model learned PV
systems autonomously over time as weather changes based on nor-
malized voltage and current measurements, and also further identifies
the possible fault type to promote system recovery. It was demonstrated
experimentally that the proposed model could correctly detect and
98
Y. Lu, A. Christou
classify specific normal conditions, line–line faults, and open-circuit
faults in real-working conditions. Sillito et al. [38] proposed and de-
monstrated an incremental semi-supervised one-class learning proce-
dure for anomalous behavior detection in a video surveillance scenario,
in which unlabeled trajectories were combined with occasional ex-
amples of normal behavior labeled by a human operator. Although the
author believed that the new procedure at least as effective as existent
unsupervised learning techniques, not enough demonstration of su-
periority using large real-world datasets was provided.
The semi-supervised anomaly detection in the present work was
based on unsupervised machine learning techniques including principal
component analysis (PCA) and k-means clustering, with a range of
healthy data defined for each time series of Vforward degradation data
and serving as labeled training data. Several baseline clusters consisting
of the identified healthy data was obtained, and an anomaly was sig-
naled when a test data point failed to conform to any of these clusters.
The novelty of the technique is the development and implementation of
a singular-value-weighted Euclidean distance as the distance measure
in clustering, and safety margin between the distribution of a distance
between healthy data within each cluster and another one of distances
between test data and healthy data. First, feature pre-selection was
performed. Nine common time-domain statistical features, given below,
were empirically selected and believed to contain useful information for
detecting anomalous behavior. Note that s denotes the failure pre-
cursor, or Vforward. At each time step t, these features were calculated by
setting a moving window that included the 10 latest Vforward points.
1) Mean ds / dt .
2) Maximum (ds/dt)max.
3) Root mean square (ds/dt)rms.
4) Standard deviation σds/dt.
5) Crest factor CFds/dt.
6) Impulse factor IFds/dt.
7) Shape factor SFds/dt.
8) Energy of the domain EDds/dt.
9) Clearance factor CLFds/dt.
Then the feature extraction was performed using PCA.
Dimensionality reduction is an important task in unsupervised/semi-
supervised machine learning involving feature extraction and feature
selection. Feature extraction was adopted in the present work instead of
feature selection from the original features because feature extraction
not just reduces the number of dimensions, but more importantly, it
comes up with uncorrelated features called principal components (PCs)
that capture the maximum variance in the raw data. This is critical
since the statistical features might be correlated with each other, re-
sulting in redundant information in features. The essence of PCA is
maximizing the variances of the features along the axis of the PCs in the
feature space, while minimizing the correlations between pertinent
features. In other words, PCA-based feature extraction can eliminate the
redundant information between features while retaining useful in-
formation as much as possible. The number of PCs is determined using
the common criterion that the cumulative percentage of variance of the
PCs exceeds 80%. For the degradation data series studied, the number
of PCs varied from 2 to 4. As the PCs were extracted, the PC-based
feature space could be established, and both the healthy and the test
data points could be located in it.
The definition of a labeled nominal (healthy) region in the raw data
was realized through evaluating the variations of the I–V output char-
acteristics of 60 IGBTs in 10 IGBT modules, measured using an Agilent
B1505A curve tracer. The tested modules were Infineon FS20R06W1E3
with a rated collector-emitter voltage (VCE) of 600 V [39], and each
module consisted of 6 IGBTs. The measured output characteristic curves
with a gate voltage VGE of 9 V and 11 V for one of the IGBTs, is shown in
Fig. 2. The point in the I–V curves selected for statistical analysis was
IC = 30A, VGE = 11 V. By collecting the corresponding collector-emitter
99
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
voltage VCE values of all the 60 IGBTs, a sample set sized 60 was es-
tablished and imported into MINITAB [40] for parametric normal dis-
tribution analysis. The normal distribution was selected since it out-
performed the Weibull distribution in goodness-of-fit for the dataset.
The 95% confidence interval (CI) of the mean of the fitted normal
distribution was considered an acceptable variation interval of healthy
data. This is because the mean of the distribution, calculated based on a
relatively large population, can be taken as the estimated Vforward
output of a single “nominal device”. The 95% CI of the mean can thus
be considered the acceptable variation interval of this “nominal de-
vice”. MINITAB calculations showed that the 95% CI of the mean was
[2.496 2.529]. Therefore, it was assumed that the set of data whose
values stayed within ± 0.6546% of the nominal value could be labeled
healthy data.
Then the training of the detection algorithm was conducted based
on the predefined healthy data using k-means clustering technique to
establish the baseline for anomaly detection. If a test data point failed to
fall into any of the baseline healthy clusters, then it was considered an
anomaly. In each case, the number of clusters k ranged from 2 to 3. The
value of k was selected using the average silhouette method, which was
introduced by Kaufman and Rousseeuw in 1990 as an effective and
direct method for determining an optimal number of clusters based on
comparison of the tightness and separation of the clusters in each case
[41]. An important step in clustering is the selection of distance mea-
sure. A distance measure is used to determine the level of similarity
between data points. The essence of clustering for healthy data is to
create groups benchmarking the typical values representing the nom-
inal behavior in healthy conditions. Deviation from the expected be-
havior, or anomalies, is typically determined by the distance from the
centroids of the healthy clusters [42]. A singular-value-weighted Eu-
clidean distance measure was developed. The conventional Euclidean
distance measure in the feature space is given in Eq. (6):
di (k )
= (PC1 (k ) − PC1m j )2 + (PC2 (k ) − PC2m j )2 +…+(PCn (k ) − PCnm j )2
(6)
where PC1, PC2, …, PCn denote the coordinates of the test data point in
the n-dimensional feature space, given that the number of PC is n;
PC1mj, PC2mj, …, PCnmj denote the coordinates of the mean of the
healthy cluster in the feature space. This distance measure is con-
sidering all the PCs as equally weighted. However, the importance of
different PCs varies, as is indicated in the corresponding singular values
representing the percentage of the variance each PC accounts for. In
PCA, PC1 corresponds to the largest singular value, so it accounts for the
largest amount of variance. Therefore, the classic Euclidean distance
was revised by assigning the corresponding singular values as weights
to the PCs, as is shown in Eq. (7):
2 2
j j
di (k ) = ⎛ SV1 (PC1 (k ) − PC1m ) ⎞ + ⎛ SV2 (PC2 (k ) − PC2m ) ⎞
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
⎝ SV1 + SV2+…+SVn ⎠ ⎝ SV1 + SV2+…+SVn ⎠
2
SV (PCn (k ) − PCnm j ) ⎞
+…+⎛ n⎜ ⎟
⎝ SV1 + SV2+…+SVn ⎠ (7)
where SVi (i = 1, …, n) are the singular values corresponding to each
PC. Based on the new distance measure, for each healthy cluster, the set
of distances between the healthy data points within the cluster could be
calculated. For each test data point, the set of distances between the test
data point and the healthy data points in each cluster could also be
calculated. Consequently, two distributions were obtained for each
healthy cluster and each test data point. It was then justified whether
these two distributions could be considered the same distribution to a
certain degree of confidence, to determine whether the test data point
belongs to that cluster. Unless it belonged to any healthy cluster, the
test data point was considered anomalous. Therefore, the safety margin
(SM) between the two distributions was calculated, assuming both
Y. Lu, A. Christou
Fig. 2. Example of I–V output characteristics curves of an IGBT in Infineon FS20R06W1E3, given a gate voltage VGE of 9 V and 11 V, respectively.
distributions were normal. SM indicates the degree of relative separa-
tion between the means of two distributions (commonly load and
strength) [43], and it can be calculated using Eq. (8):
μtest − μhealthy, x
SMx =
σtest 2 + σhealthy, x 2
where μtest, σtest are the mean and the standard deviation of the dis-
tribution of dt between the test data point and healthy cluster x (x = 1,
2, 3), respectively, and μhealthy, σhealthy are the mean and the standard
deviation of the distribution of dh in healthy cluster x, respectively. Let
Rx be the probability that the test data point does not belong to the
healthy cluster x, SM can then be used to determine Rx:
Rx = Φ (SMx )
A critical reliability threshold of Rx = 0.995 was defined. Once the
Rx values for all the healthy clusters exceeded 0.995, it was believed
that the test data point didn't belong to any healthy cluster with at least
99.5% confidence level, and an anomaly was considered detected and
was signaled at this point.
B. Process and measurement model
The process model is the basis of PF implementation for RUL pre-
diction. Variables that constitute the process model should be those
whose evolutions can effectively signal the degradation of the DUTs, or
relevant to the real-time loads or stresses, to “drive” the evolution of the
failure precursor. The most straightforward choice was t, the elapsed
test time or cycles, as was used in [14,15]. The problem with using t
only is that the evolution of Vforward in IGBT modules is not smooth and
monotonic. A better choice should account for the real-time loading
condition. Saha et al. [12] used Δtk, the resting period between each
power cycle, while Orchard et al. [20] used a hypothetical loading
parameter incorporating in-situ loading conditions. On the other hand,
the principal failure mechanism was known to be bond wire lift-off, and
the physics of this failure mechanism was well-known. The parametric
degradation could be associated with the physics-of-failure of devices,
or the crack propagation inside the bond wires during power cycling.
Note that in the model proposed in the present work, the influence of
solder interconnect degradation was neglected since it was difficult to
gauge and model its exact influence on the acceleration of bond wire
failures. Based on these justifications, another contribution of the pre-
sent work is the simultaneous incorporation of the physics-of-failure
model related to the dominant failure mechanism and the in-situ
loading profile monitored and acquired during the test. Two determi-
nant variables, l(k) and ΔK(k), were used to “drive” the increase of
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
VGE=11V
VGE=9V
failure precursor. l(k) is a hypothetic variable associated with the power
cycle loading parameters, the load current Iload, and the junction tem-
perature variation ΔTj, as is shown in Eq. (10). The values of ΔTj were
derived from the base plate temperature, which was monitored in-situ
throughout the tests in parallel with Vforward. In this sense, l(k) indicates
(8) the real-time loading condition in the test.
l (k ) = fl (Iload , ∆Tj (k ) ) (10)
ΔK(k) is the stress intensity factor analytically derived from Paris
Equation, which governs crack propagation under fatigue loads. The
idea is to simulate the crack growth procedure in the critical compo-
nents of IGBT module package. In the theory of fatigue, ΔK(k) is related
to the crack length a and the stress amplitude Δσ:
(9)
∆K (k ) = α∆σ πa (11)
where α is a constant. Δσ is related to ΔTj, while the crack length is not
directly calculable. The famous Paris Equation is:
da
= A (∆K )n
dN (12)
where A, n are material-related constants. Combining Eq. (11) with Eq.
(12) and performing an integral over da and dN, respectively, yielded
the relationship between ΔK(k) and N, the elapsed power cycles, given
in Eq. (13). The bond wire material was assumed to be aluminum. The
NASGRO database [44] gave the n value of around 3.2 for aluminum
and aluminum alloys.
1
n n 2−n
∆K (k ) ∝ B ⎡A ⎛1 − ⎞ BnN + ai1 − 2 ⎤
⎣ ⎝ 2⎠ ⎦ (13)
where B = 1.12∆σ π , in which Δσ is the stress amplitude at the crack
location, and in turn associated with the junction temperature variation
ΔTj with the following relationship:
∆σ = CE (αAl − αSi ) ∆Tj (14)
where C < 1 is a constant, E is the young's modulus of aluminum, the
bond wire material, and αAl and αSi are the CTEs of the aluminum and
silicon, respectively. The optimal choice of process noise, as was dis-
cussed in Corbetta et al. [45], is a multiplicative noise where a log-
normal random noise eω, ω ~ N(0,σω2) is multiplied by the increments
to represent the uncertainties. The ω in the noise follows the normal
distribution and is subject to the principle below:
σw 2
μw = −
2 (15)
Thus, the process model takes the following form:
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Y. Lu, A. Christou
s (k + 1) = fm (s (k ), l (k ), ∆K (k ), w (k ))
where s(k) denotes the failure precursor value (Vforward for IGBTs) at
time step k, and w(k) denotes the process noise. To specify the process
model, as well as the relationship between l(k) and the loading para-
meters Iload and ΔTj, a proper nonlinear mathematical model needed to
be selected. The power law polynomial model was selected among a
number of common nonlinear mathematical models, including the
power law model, the exponential model, multiplicative model, etc.,
because it had the greatest flexibility in shape. Therefore, the process
model related to the initial value of the failure precursor s0 is shown in
Eq. (17):
s (k ) = s0 + (l (k ) − l 0 + m1 ∗ ∆K (k )n1 ) ∗ e w (k )
The load variable l(k) was also assumed to follow the power law
polynomial model:
l (k ) = m2 Iload n2 + m3 ∆Tj (k )n3
Taking the derivative of Eq. (17) and combining Eq. (18) lead to:
ds (k ) d∆Tj (k ) d∆K (k ) ⎞ w (k )
= ⎛m3 n3 ∆Tj (k )n3− 1
⎜ + m1 n1 ∆K (k )n1− 1 e
⎟
dt ⎝ dt dt ⎠
By assuming that dt can be discretized into small steps, Eq. (19) was
converted to the following canonical form:
s (k + 1) = s (k ) + (m3 n3 ∆Tj (k )n3− 1 (∆Tj (k + 1) − ∆Tj (k ))
+ m1 n1 ∆K (k )n1− 1 (∆K (k + 1) − ∆K (k ))) e w (k )
whereas
s (1) = s0 + (l (1) − l 0 + m1 ∗ ∆K (1)n1 ) e w (1)
The last part of the prognostic model was the measurement model
accounting for the differences between the measured values and the
actual values of the variables. In the present work, the two variables
with a measurement error are Vforward and ΔTj. The measurement error
was assumed to be Gaussian. The measurement model is as follows:
y (k ) = s (k ) + v1 (k )
ΔTy (k ) = ΔTj (k ) + v2 (k )
where y(k) and ΔTy(k) are the measured raw values of s(k) and ΔTj(k),
v1(k) and v2(k) denote the measurement noise of s(k) and ΔTj(k), re-
spectively.
4. Prognostic model validation through particle filter
implementation
The procedure of the prognostic model implementation is given as a
flow chart in Fig. 3. The prognostic model developed in the previous
section was validated through its implementation on several Vforward
degradation curves from the literature sources mentioned at the end of
section I. The series of Vforward data were extracted and digitized from
the original plots in the literature sources using Plot Digitizer. Then the
data was pre-processed to have an identical interval of 100 cycles be-
tween adjacent data points using linear interpolation locally. Both
anomaly detection as well as parametric estimation and updates of the
process model were based on the pre-processed precursor data. The
complete anomaly detection procedure introduced in section III.A was
then implemented to determine of the probability of anomaly for each
test data point.
For the process model, the two determinant variables l(k) and ΔK(k)
was derived. Iload was set to be constants in the literature sources and
the values were provided. For ΔTj, the corresponding raw data of either
ΔTj or Tj,max/Tj,min were provided for each degradation curve as well,
which were extracted and digitized in the same way as the Vforward data
from the relevant plots in the papers. In agreement with the hypothesis,
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
(16) the ΔTj values generally showed an increasing trend over elapsed cy-
cles. An initial model check was performed on the Vforward data using
least square regression to ensure that the power law polynomial process
model could provide satisfactory fits to the data. The goodness-of-fit
was defined as that given the model followed the trend of the precursor
data tightly in the initial part of the test (a few thousand cycles), the
regression results should follow the evolution of the actual curve
throughout the subsequent test time (cycles). In case the regression
results could not follow, the power law polynomial model had to be
replaced. It turned out that the power law polynomial model fitted well
to all the Vforward series, providing a solid basis for the actual PF im-
plementation.
(17) The SIR filter introduced in section II was then implemented. In PF,
the larger the number of particles is, the more accurately it should re-
present the prediction results proposed by the process model. However,
the limited computing power prevented the implementation of a very
(18) large number of particles in the present work. The number of particles
is 100 was chosen for this work. The particles were initiated from the
actual measurement at 500 cycles, when there were 5 actual measure-
ments available for initial regression. Uniform initial weights were as-
sumed for the particles since their importance could not be dis-
tinguished at the initiation. The particles were propagated to predict
(19) the Vforward value at the next step (100 cycles later) using the power law
polynomial model whose parameters were estimated in least square
regression on all the prior Vforward data, or y(1:k − 1) as denoted in the
PF model. The process noise distribution was assumed to be Gaussian
with μ = −1.25 × 10−3 V and σ = 0.05 V, based on Eq. (15). The
(20) value of σ was chosen empirically. As predictions were made for all the
particles at each step, the weights of the particles were updated based
on the Z-score calculated from the deviation of the predicted value of
(21) each particle from the actual measurement at the step, given the
Gaussian process noise distribution just mentioned. The updated
weights were then normalized using Eq. (2). The resampling step fol-
lowed Eqs. (3) and (4) stringently. This “prediction” and “weight up-
date” procedure was carried out iteratively until an anomaly was sig-
naled. Then the RUL prediction was triggered offering a distributional
estimation on all the subsequent states based on the latest updated
process model at the point of anomaly signaling, until when the pre-
(22) defined failure threshold was reached. The predicted cycles to failure
(CTF) was defined as the point when the failure threshold was reached
by a number of particles whose weights added up to over 0.5. It should
be noted that the inherent randomness of the PF approach leads to
slight different prediction results every time the algorithm is executed.
Therefore, to minimize the randomness of an individual execution, the
algorithm was executed 10 times independently in each case and the
results of the 10 executions were averaged for the final prediction result
of CTF value. The 95% confidence interval of each execution was also
determined and averaged. This value was compared with the actual
CTF value of the raw data to calculate the prediction error and assess
the robustness of the prognostic model in the relevant case. The CTF
value scattering resulting from the scattering of individual particle
trajectories, combined with the particle weights, also formed a dis-
tribution of the CTFs that was of significance in real-world application
schemes. In some cases, the Vforward series showed a decreasing trend in
the initial part of the test. This was because of the slow variation of the
average device temperature that rose by several degrees [46]. This part
of the curve was therefore considered useless and neglected. The actual
minimum of the Vforward across the curve was considered the starting
point of degradation and prognostic modeling.
5. Results and discussions
The prognostic model developed in the present work was coded and
validated using MATLAB [47]. Following the previous discussions,
calculations of the 9 time-domain statistical features and feature ex-
traction using PCA were performed first. Fig. 4 shows the results of PCA
101
Y. Lu, A. Christou
Fig. 3. The flow chart of the prognostic model implementation.
based on the healthy Vforward data from [27], by plotting the data points
in the 3D and 2D feature space constructed from the three most im-
portant PCs and the two most important PCs corresponding to the lar-
gest singular values, respectively.
Then k-means clustering was implemented as the key step for
anomaly detection, which resulted in three healthy clusters. As was
discussed earlier, the optimal number of clusters was determined using
average silhouette method. Table I summarized the optimal number of
clusters in each case studied and the corresponding maximum silhou-
ette value. Fig. 5 shows the results of k-means clustering for the healthy
Vforward data from [27]. The shapes of points plotted in the figure, in-
cluding star, circle and cross sign, represent their affiliations to the
three healthy clusters. All the points plotted in the same shape belong to
102
Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105
the same cluster. After the healthy data were clustered, the affiliation of
each test data point to each healthy cluster was determined based on
the singular-value-weighted distance measure given in Eq. (7), and the
probability of anomaly using Eqs. (8) and (9). Table II summarizes the
anomaly detection results for all the cases studied in the present work,
showing the anomaly signaling point (ASP) for each case. To evaluate if
the anomaly detection model was functioning properly, a percentage
metric was used indicating where the ASP lied in the range from the
onset of test data to the actual DUT failure point. It turned out that the
anomaly detection model could successfully detect anomalies and
provide timely warning in all cases.
After an anomaly was detected and signaled, the time series of ΔK
(k) were calculated, and the SIR filter was implemented for RUL
Y. Lu, A. Christou Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Principal Component Feature Plot of a) 3D with all the three PCs; b) 2D with the two most important PCs.

Table I Table II
Summary of optimal number of clusters. Summary of anomaly detection results.
Literature source Max. silhouette value Optimal number of clusters Literature source Upper bound of Anomaly signaling Percentage of CTF
healthy data point (ASP) at the ASP (%)
Tounsi [25] 0.768 3 (cycles) (cycles)
Scheuermann [26] 0.85 3
Schmidt [27] 1E 0.686 2 Tounsi [25] 111,100 129,700 79.15
Schmidt [27] 2E 0.62 3 Scheuermann [26] 3100 3800 4.02
Schmidt [27] 1E 21,800 56,900 78.52
Schmidt [27] 2E 31,100 53,900 70.59
prediction of the DUTs. Fig. 6 shows the life prediction results using the
SIR filter for the Vforward data in [27]. The trajectories of particles at the
training stage are marked in black, formed by the recursive prediction Table III summarizes the results the predicted CTFs, the raw data CTFs,
and update procedure. As an anomaly was detected and signaled at the prediction errors and 95% two-sided confidence intervals of all the
39,800 cycles, the RUL prediction was triggered, and the particles were studied cases.
propagated until the 5% Vforward increase failure threshold was reached, Generally, the prediction results in the present work were satisfac-
whose trajectories are marked in blue at the prediction stage. The tory, with half of the cases giving average prediction errors below 3%,
predicted CTF was 65,061 cycles, as the average of 10 individual and showing the robustness of the proposed prognostic model for different
independent predictions of the PF-based prognostic model. The raw IGBT modules under varying power cycling conditions. A significant
data series hit the failure threshold at 63,400 cycles. The average pre- advantage of this model is the incorporation of the physics-of-failure
diction error in this case was 2.62%. In the other cases, the average knowledge in the data-driven model. It combines the merits of both
prediction errors of 10 predictions ranged from 1.15% to 13.57%. For model-based and data-driven prognostic approaches and has demon-
each case, the 95% two-sided confidence interval was also calculated. strated great promise in prognostics of semiconductor electronic

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. K-means clustering results of a) 3D with all the three PCs; b) 2D with PC1 and PC2 only, the two most important PCs; All the points plotted in the same shape
of star, circle or cross belong to the same cluster.

103
Y. Lu, A. Christou Microelectronics Reliability 92 (2019) 96–105

Failure Prediction Stage

Threshold

Training Stage

TTF (×100 Cycles)

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. a) Life prediction results on the Vforward curve based on SIR filter; b) Predicted cycles-to-failure (CTF) distribution of 100 Particles for the Vforward curve [27].

Table III
Summary of prediction errors.
Literature source Predicted CTF (cycles) Actual CTF (cycles) Prediction error (%) 95% confidence interval (cycles)

Tounsi [25] 155,590 134,600 +15.59 [148,960; 161,010]

Scheuermann [26] 20,390 20,500 −0.54 [19,130; 21,300+a]
Schmidt [27] 1E 67,220 66,500 +1.08 [63,450; 74,590]
Schmidt [27] 2E 63,890 63,400 +0.77 [60,390; 67,580]

a
Right-censored data due to end of test at 21,300 cycles.

devices, given that a dominant failure mechanism exists, and the phy- learning techniques including principal component analysis and k-
sics of this failure mechanism is well understood. Another advantage of means clustering. The algorithm successfully detected data anomalies
the model is the integration of an anomaly detection technique, which for all the cases studied. The novelty of the anomaly detection tech-
in prospective field applications where online monitoring and RUL nique lies in the implementation of the singular-value-weighted
prediction is required, can work with the training stage (recursive Euclidean distance measure and the determination of the probability of
prediction and update procedure) of the process model in parallel so anomaly based on safety margin between the distribution of distances
that they don't interfere or rely on each other until an anomaly is de- between a test data point and the healthy data points in each cluster,
tected. This could potentially reduce the complexity of the adaption of and the distribution of distances between the healthy data points within
the prognostic model to different failure precursors and model para- each cluster. The PF-based RUL prediction was based on a non-linear
meters for different types of semiconductor electronic devices, subject failure precursor process model, which was a power law polynomial
to different operating conditions and failure mechanisms. A drawback model and its novelty lies in the simultaneous incorporation of the
of this model might be its reliance on a known dominant failure me- physics-of-failure knowledge related to the failure mechanism and the
chanism. For complex systems with multiple failure mechanisms com- in-situ loading profile during the test. The sampling importance re-
peting against each other, this model may not be applicable. Also, this sampling filter was implemented, and the model was validated on
model requires the in-situ monitoring of the actual loading condition in several different series of Vforward data, from literature sources reporting
the reliability test or field operation as the input. the power cycling test results on different IGBT modules under different
In addition to IGBT modules, the framework of the prognostic model testing conditions. The RUL prediction results demonstrated the ro-
developed in the present work will also be applied to wide-bandgap bustness of the model, with half of cases reporting errors within 3%.
semiconductor devices, such as GaN high-electron-mobility transistors The present work also laid a solid foundation for future work im-
(HEMTs) developed for RF and microwave applications, with entirely plementing the developed PF models on different types of semi-
different device structures, operating conditions and failure mechan- conductor electronic devices.
isms, to demonstrate the broader applicability of the model. The ulti-
mate goal is to develop and validate a generic model framework for Nomenclature
prognostics of various types of failures of semiconductor electronic
devices. ASP anomaly signaling point
CI confidence interval
6. Conclusions CTE coefficient of thermal expansion
CTF cycles-to-failure
In the present work, a prognostic model incorporating both a novel DIAD dynamical invariant anomaly detector
anomaly detection technique and particle-filter-based RUL prediction DUT devices under test
was developed and validated for dynamic life prediction of the IGBT FDI fault detection and identification
modules under power cycling conditions, where the dominant failure IGBT insulated gate bipolar transistor
mechanism was bond wire lift-off. The anomaly detection technique PC principal component
was based on semi-supervised machine learning, utilizing unsupervised PCA principal component analysis

104
Y. Lu, A. Christou
PEM power electronic module
PF particle filter
RUL remaining useful life
SIS sequential importance sampling
SIR sampling importance resampling
SM safety margin
Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the assistance of Dr. M. H. Azarian and his
laboratory at the University of Maryland. This investigation was funded
by the L-3 Corporation, the Maryland Energy Administration, the
Natural Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
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