Manufacturing and Reliability Issues of Highly Integrated Packages for Power Electronic Applications

The demand for power electronic packages is constantly growing. With an increasing power loss of electrical components, the thermal performance of is gaining more attention on the PCB-level. The application of relatively thick Cu cores in PCB modules is beneficial with respect to high levels of ampacity and heat dissipation. Applicable PCB designs require a more or less complex structure and/or arrangement of several cores. For instance, gaps between several Cu cores are demanded for highvoltage applications, while cavities may be of a certain advantage when additional components need to be integrated on a high level. In our work, we investigated the reliability using repeated thermal shocks of PCB test vehicles featuring cavities within Cu cores of 2 mm thickness. After 1000 cycles the specimens do not show any significant damage which may result in an operational failure. Additionally, we investigated deliberately introduced defects at the Cu-resin interface by means of thermography.