This project analyzes a cutting-edge cooling system concept from the reliability point of view. Concurrently with the project's development, it provides the necessary conceptual design alternatives to ensure practical designs that account for potential failure sites, causes, modes, and mechanisms.

CALCE faculty Dr. Diganta Das is the Principal Investigator for this project, and Prof. Michael Ohadi is leading the overall effort.

CALCE faculty Prof. Michael Ohadi, who led the UMD research team, has been selected for a newly announced multi-institutional project to develop an effective cooling system for stacks of microelectronic chips that perform functions ranging from processing to memory. HRL Laboratories is the project lead.

The IPCEF has awarded a scholarship to a Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. student at CALCE, Ibaad Gandikota. Ibaad is working under the direction and mentorship of Prof. F. Patrick McCluskey. Ibaad’s research focuses on reliability analysis and thermal management of electronic systems, with an emphasis on failure mechanisms and optimization strategies.

Failure propagation exists widely in complex systems and has great influence on reliability evaluation of systems. A system reliability model considering multiple failure propagation based on the dependent competing failure process is developed in this paper. A multiple failure propagation is explored, namely, acceleration of degra dation and intensification of shock. ...

Some manufacturers use the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 60529 standard, “Degrees of protection provided by enclosures (IP Code),” to assess their products’ liquid-protection capabilities, as well as market their products. While the standard provides tests to assess some aspects of water-protection, the original intent of IEC 60529 standard is not aligned with the requirements for reliability testing or long-term liquid protection assessment for portable electronics. ...

Highly filled thermosets are widely used to encapsulate chips in the semiconductor packaging industry. A complete set of viscoelastic properties are required for package designs with optimum mechanical reliability. A novel test method, based on inert gas pressure, is proposed and implemented to measure the temperature-dependent viscoelastic hydrostatic creep compliance (or compressibility) of filled thermosets. ...

The hybrid-active-neutral-point-clamped (H-ANPC) inverter, which integrates Si and SiC devices, outperforms the traditional Si NPC inverter without incurring the higher cost of a SiC NPC inverter. Nevertheless, the SiC MOSFETs in the Si/SiC H-ANPC experience higher power losses than the Si IGBTs, potentially impacting their reliability. Through accelerated electrothermal power-cycling tests (PCTs) and statistical lifetime assessments based on inverter mission profiles, this paper investigates the lifetimes of these semiconductor devices. ...