Advancing Power Electronics Reliability [White Hot

Abstract

In the last few years I have noticed more and more papers addressing power electronics and reliability. These papers are, as I have noticed, all coming from academia. Now there is even a university re - search center focused on power electronics reliability — the Center Of Reliable Power Electronics (CORPE) at the University of Aalborg in Denmark. I admit that I have been a bit put off by this. As someone who has spent his entire career in industry, my reaction has been "What do these university folks think they know about reliability that industry has not already solved?" The author concludes that he is now glad to see university research on power electronics reliability even though I suspect industry is actually way ahead but unable to publish their results due to business confidentiality needs. Anything that can help move us ahead is welcome. As power electronics becomes more and more central to our lives, reliability, service life, and availability will become increasingly important. While we can never achieve perfect reliability and availability, we can strive to make our semiconductor based power electronics as reliable and long lived as the copper and iron based electronics they will be replacing.