Power electronics packages with embedded components - recent trends and developments

During the last decade, embedding technology has evolved from a research subject to a hot topic in packaging industry. It provides outstanding features regarding miniaturization, electrical performance of interconnects and reliability. Today the concept of embedding has been adopted by Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturers, semiconductor houses and packaging services (OSATs). A variety of products is in manufacturing like chip packages and System-in-Packages (SiP) for power applications. Power electronics packaging applications have a strong demand regarding reliability and cost. The fields of development reach from low power converter modules, over single or multichip MOSFET or IGBT packages, up to high power applications, like needed e.g. for power inverters and automotive applications. For high power automotive applications, recent developments toward module realization will be described in detail. These developments will cover the screening and use of organic substrate materials for embedding and thermal management as well as interconnection materials for die, module and heat sink assembly. Here a strong focus is on newly developed low temperature low pressure Ag sinter materials. The continuous optimization of this process, as well as analytical results will be presented. The potential of the embedding technology for such an application will be discussed by the example of current and coming research activities. For upcoming hybrid cars and fully electrical vehicles automotive OEM and supplier together with research centres are currently developing a power converter for upper class hybrid cars. It contains embedded 200 A IGBTs and diodes and aims for 50 kW switching power. The current status regarding realization of first 10kW switching power modules will be explained. A detailed overview of the manufacturing process will be given and first electrical test results will be presented.