Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED

Pinti, Federica; Belli, Alberto; Palma, Lorenzo; Gattari, Massimo; Pierleoni, Paola

doi:10.3390/electronics9060920

Open AccessArticle

Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED

by

Federica Pinti

^1,*

,

Alberto Belli

¹

,

Lorenzo Palma

¹

,

Massimo Gattari

² and

Paola Pierleoni

¹

Department of Information Engineering (DII), Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60131 Ancona, Italy

²

iGuzzini Illuminazione S.p.A, Via Mariano Guzzini 37, 62019 Recanati, Italy

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Electronics 2020, 9(6), 920; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060920

Submission received: 29 April 2020 / Revised: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 27 May 2020 / Published: 1 June 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges and New Trends in Power Electronic Devices Reliability)

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Abstract

The Light Emitting Diode (LED) has many advantages compared to traditional lamps, such as a long lifetime, color rendering and energy saving. It requires good thermal management, since as the temperature increases, the lifetime decreases. Furthermore, the presence of cracks in the Solder Joint of an LED (SJL) compromises the correct dispersion of heat and causes the joint fatigue. This can lead to a decrease in the lifetime of the assembled LED. In this study, we validated that an SJL can be considered faulty if the Forward Voltage (Vf) acquired before and after thermal cycles increases by more than 2%. The voltage measurement method was validated by comparing the results with the techniques commonly used to evaluate the defects of a solder joint as the X-ray analysis and the metallographic section. The failure analysis results present the probability of failure and the lifetime of the SJL achieved by analyzing the data using the Norris–Landberg Model. The lifetime calculated over 1800 SJLs considered in the validation process is greater than 20 years for 95.9% of the tested LEDs.

Keywords: LED; thermal cycling test; accelerated test; solder joint; cracks

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MDPI and ACS Style

Pinti, F.; Belli, A.; Palma, L.; Gattari, M.; Pierleoni, P. Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED. Electronics 2020, 9, 920. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060920

AMA Style

Pinti F, Belli A, Palma L, Gattari M, Pierleoni P. Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED. Electronics. 2020; 9(6):920. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060920

Chicago/Turabian Style

Pinti, Federica, Alberto Belli, Lorenzo Palma, Massimo Gattari, and Paola Pierleoni. 2020. "Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED" Electronics 9, no. 6: 920. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060920

APA Style

Pinti, F., Belli, A., Palma, L., Gattari, M., & Pierleoni, P. (2020). Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED. Electronics, 9(6), 920. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060920

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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Validation of Forward Voltage Method to Estimate Cracks of the Solder Joints in High Power LED

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