Degradation Testing of Thermoelectrics Due to Temperature
In today's global environment, accelerated life testing (ALT) is becoming a competitive advantage when time spent from the conceptual stage to final product development needs to be minimized. Using ALT techniques for semiconductors and structural applications has substantial challenges when defining the thermal fatigue life-stress relationship to represent actual field performance. Helpful strategies to address such common problems using ALT are presented for faster ALT planning. Test examples from the refrigeration industry are used for this demonstration. The tests and analyses performed effectively increased the degree of reliability improvement and reduced the total number of test hours, resulting in a shorter design cycle.Abstract
Contributor Notes
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Julio Pulido, PhD, is a senior vice president of global quality and reliability engineering at Phononic. He drives the design for reliability capability development and quality assurance at Phononic. He holds a BS from Federal University of Bahia, Brazil; an MSc from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; and a PhD from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He conducted his PhD Research at Duke University; earned his MBA from Xavier University; and obtained an MSc in technology from The University of Chicago. His specialty is structural analysis, vibration, and structural reliability design and accelerated testing techniques. He has published more than 80 works at different peer-reviewed international symposiums.
Contact Author: Julio Pulido, PhD, julio.pulido@phononic.com, Phononic, Capitola Drive, Durham, NC.
Kit Manchette is a reliability and failure analysis engineer at Phononic. She specializes in post-stress failure analysis of thermoelectric modules (TEMs). She received a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering from North Carolina State University. Her interest is in materials characterization, improving TEM performance, and failure analysis of semiconductor elements.
Contact Author: Kit Manchette, kit.manchette@phononic.com, Phononic, Capitola Drive, Durham, NC.