Ultrasonic wedge bonding of aluminum (Al) wires is a widely applied interconnect technology for power electronic packaging. The joint quality of the wedge bonding is mainly affected by the process parameters and material properties. Inappropriate process parameters will lead to failure modes such as chip surface pit, metal layer peeling off, wire cracking, non-sticking to the pad, etc., which limits the long-term stability of power devices. In order to reach the desired reliability, the design of experiment (DoE) is generally deployed which is costly in terms of time and related materials. Therefore, simulation-assisted analysis is in demand to rapidly narrow down the process windows. In this paper, an ultrasonic bonding model involving thick Al wires (300 μm) was established based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), to optimize process parameters effectively with reduced time and cost. The model was designed in ANSYS utilizing the transient structural mechanics module with various stresses and ultrasonic power, to simulate the relative deformation of the bonded wires and the displacement against the substrate. The result was then verified by ultrasonic wedge bonding samples with 9 sets of process parameters. The stress distributions were simulated and analyzed with the failure modes of tensile strength tests, while the deformation of wires under various process parameters was measured and compared with shear strength tests. Further, the relationship between the failure modes of the joint and the deformation was then analyzed by Response Surface Method (RSM), and the regression equation of the wire deformation and related process parameters was established and fitted with the actual sample's data. Such analysis not only found the optimum range of the deformation of thick Al ultrasonic wire bonds but also quickly provided a range of optimized processes for Al thick wires applying ultrasonic wedge bonding techniques.

With the development of 5G communication technology and the rise of power semiconductors, the switching frequency of the circuit keeps increasing, which pushes for miniaturization of power modules and related components. Therefore, in this paper, a one-step molding technology was proposed for a DC/DC buck converter power module. We proposed a method of using Soft Magnetic Powder filled Epoxy (SMPE) adhesive as a molding material to encapsulate a power module, which is a DC/DC buck converter power module contains several passive components, 1 power inductor, and a high-efficiency switching regulator with two integrated N-channel MOSFETs. On the basis of Finite Element Method (FEM), models were firstly established with component level moldings and checked with actual module samples for calibration. Based on the calibrated model, inductors without component level molding were then simulated. SMPE with 4~7μm insulated carbonyl ferrous powder were prepared and measured the magnetic relative permeability. Such material was investigated to pot the whole power module as a one-step molding, instead of separate molding for the power inductor and the power module. After that, thermal analysis and inductance were calculated and compared.

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.