On the effect of ramp rate in damage accumulation of the CPV die-attach

Abstract

It is commonly understood that thermal cycling at high temperature ramp rates may activate unrepresentative failure mechanisms. Increasing the temperature ramp rate of thermal cycling, however, could dramatically reduce the test time required to achieve an equivalent amount of thermal fatigue damage, thereby reducing overall test time. Therefore, the effect of temperature ramp rate on physical damage in the CPV die-attach is investigated. Finite Element Model (FEM) simulations of thermal fatigue and thermal cycling experiments are made to determine if the amount of damage calculated results in a corresponding amount of physical damage measured to the die-attach for a variety of fast temperature ramp rates. Preliminary experimental results are in good agreement with simulations and reinforce the potential of increasing temperature ramp rates. Characterization of the microstructure and resulting fatigue crack in the die-attach suggest a similar failure mechanism across all ramp rates tested.