Method For Measuring Degradation Of Thermal Resistance Between Power Semiconductor And Heat Sink, And Control Device For Power Semiconductor

Abstract: Provided is a method for measuring degradation of a thermal resistance RTh between a power semiconductor in a power module assembly and a heat sink of said power module assembly where said power semiconductor has an internal gate resistance, comprising measuring a first initial parameter, K0, related to the power semiconductor junction temperature at a stable operating temperature, heating the internal gate resistance and measuring a second initial parameter, K1, related to the junction temperature after said heating, and saving the first and second initial parameters K0 and K1 in a memory, after discrete time intervals d1,..., dn during the lifetime of the power module assembly measuring a first subsequent parameter, K0d,..., K0dn, related to the power semiconductor junction temperature at a stable operating temperature T0d1,... T0dn, heating the internal gate resistance and measuring a second subsequent parameter, K1d,..., K1dn related to the junction temperature T1d1,... T1dn after said heating, and calculating a thermal resistance degradation, ?RTh with the subsequent parameters related to junction temperature and the initial parameters as read from the memory and comparing ?RTh with a limit value ?RTh max and raising a fault flag in case ?RTh is above said limit value.

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