The development of silicon-based high-power devices, e.g. IGBTs, has reached its application limits in terms of high-temperature and high-frequency harsh operating conditions. Wide bandgap (WBG) power devices (such as silicon carbide, SiC) are currently one of the most promising power devices for replacement. Due to their intrinsic bandgap, SiC high-power devices have proven their superior performance in high-frequency and high-temperature working scenarios. With the increasing demand of high-power semiconductor devices in industries such as new-energy vehicles, high-speed railway systems, and aerospace, the conditions of SiC power semiconductor devices have become more and more complex, which brings challenges to electronic packaging technology. Due to thermal management and reliability requirements for SiC power devices, customized advanced heat dissipation structures, and high-temperature soldering materials have been introduced in power device packaging technology. The reliability verification of these new electronic packaging technologies is often time-consuming and labor-intensive, so designers hope to obtain results consistent with actual experimental data through the utilization of computer-aided design methods, such as finite-element analysis (FEA), which will greatly reduce the number of iterations of physical prototypes and the development time. This article reviewed and discussed the application of FEA in the latest packaging technology, including the extraction of the thermal resistance network of the SiC power module, the thermal simulation of the novel efficient cooling structure, the thermo-mechanical analysis of the high-temperature packaging material, and the long-term reliability FEA of the SiC power devices.

Ultrasonic wire bonding is one of the critical challenges for power semiconductor manufacturing process, especially for silicon carbide (SiC) power devices. Packaging-related strain on the dies is one of the limiting factors for SiC devices scaling towards mass-production. Furthermore, due to the high current demand for SiC power device packaging, thick bond wires are often needed, which brings major challenges for the ultrasonic wire bonding process. Thus, computational simulation methods are under development to assist the wire bonding process. This paper presents a simulation method that can quickly narrow the process window for thick bond wires on SiC power devices beforehand. A process model was created to adapt process parameters of bonding force and power. This model aims to simulate the bond deformation for a discretized bonding area. Wire deformation and equivalent plastic strain were then examined and compared. The model was further validated through experiments. Experimental validation of the wire bonding model reveals a suitable deformation of bond wires, which helps to improve thick wire bonding reliability for power electronics packaging.