Comparison Study of Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) Measurement Methods for Detecting Wire Interconnect Related Open-Contact and Short-Contact Failures in Power Semiconductor

Abstract

Open-contact and short-contact are 2 common failures that causing power semiconductor to have electrical malfunctioned. One of the reasons of these failures relate to defective in the wire interconnect. Time domain reflectometry (TDR) is a common method widely used to detect failures in semiconductor devices. This study focused on comparing 3 different TDR measurement methods in detecting wire related open and short failure for power semiconductor, namely Single-Ended method, Single-Pin Grounded method and All-Pin Grounded method. A special custom-made jig is used during the measurements to ensure all the methods are measured under the same conditions. This study shows that all the 3 TDR measurement methods are able to detect wire related open and short failures in power semiconductor. The Single-Pin grounded method is the preferred method because it is easy in term of setup and having the good capability in detecting both open and short failures. Furthermore, the study also shows that the TDR is able to detect the location of open and short failures that is not able to achieve by using the conventional electrical testing method.
 HIGHLIGHTS
 
 Comparison study on Single-Ended, Single-Pin Grounded and All-Pin Grounded TDR measurement methods in detecting open-contact and short-contact failure in power semiconductor
 The study shows Single-Pin Grounded TDR measurement method is the preferred method since it is easy in term of setup and able to detect both the open-contact and short-contact failures
 TDR measurement method is also able to locate the location of open-contact and short-contact failures
 
 GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT