Practical implementation of a Novel Temperature-Insensitive Aging Indicator for on-line monitoring of bond-wire degradation in IGBT power modules

The online assessment of the health status of power electronic modules is crucial for predictive maintenance, enabling better system reliability and optimized operational efficiency. Traditional aging indicators are often impractical for online monitoring due to their complexity and high implementation costs, particularly because they require junction temperature estimation. In this paper, we focus on the practical implementation of a novel, temperature-insensitive aging indicator tailored for on-line monitoring bondwire degradation in IGBT power modules. This method, based on the analysis of zerotemperature coefficient (ZTC) of I-V characteristics with degraded top-metal interconnects, allows for an efficient and costeffective monitoring solution. It is presented an experimental validation through power cycling tests, highlighting the feasibility of real-time application. The proposed indicator shows a strong correlation with conventional aging indicators while offering enhanced sensitivity and independence from temperature variations. Furthermore, we outline a robust methodology for integrating this approach into industrial or embedded applications, ensuring scalability and ease of deployment.