Physics-of-Failure (PoF) methodology for qualification and lifetime assessment of supercapacitors for industrial applications

Abstract

Supercapacitors are used nowadays in an extensive range of battery-powered devices such as GPS/GPRS transceivers, active RFID tags, industrial PDAs, electronic locks, micro medical pumps, digital cameras, mobile phones and others. They are also used in vehicle's and machine's sub-systems requiring short but robust powerful current pulses. This covers back-up, delivery and leveling of high peak power as well as storing harvested energy.They are designed to meet high power requirements that cannot be fulfilled by standard batteries. Furthermore, their size and cost are very attractive for industries.However, selecting the right supercapacitor for a specific application remains a real challenge to industry. The specifications of these components only provide limited information about their lifetime for specific stress values. This information is not enough for industries to design a robust product and avoid high field returns.In this paper, we apply the Physics-of-Failure (PoF) methodology for qualification and lifetime assessment of electronic systems, to derive PoF models for supercapacitors at different stresses relevant for some industrial applications. It is expected from these models to better understand the performance of supercapacitors at different stresses and to predict accurate lifetime of supercapacitors allowing industry to robustly design their products and avoid high field returns.