Contribution to non-destructive inspection of power semiconductor assemblies by stimulating a lateral heat flow

The growing market volume of power electronics during the past years leads to innovative packaging technologies and enhanced requirements on productivity and efficiency and therefore continuous improvement of production processes. There is a need for new or complementary solutions to realize an inline capable diagnostic fitting the quality, reliability and economy requirements. Thermography seems to be a promising approach. It works contact-free and fast and can determine the thermal properties of the package. Previous work has shown that a thermographic inspection of the relevant defects is possible. This paper deals with the improvement of thermographic inspection by laterally stimulated heat flow.