Pressure Contact Interconnection for High Reliability Medium Power Integrated Power Electronic Modules

This paper presents a novel spring pressure contact interconnect technique for medium power integrated power electronics modules (IPEMs). The key technology of this interconnection is a spring which is made from Be-Cu alloy. By means of the string pressure contact, sufficient press-contact force and good electrical interconnection can be achieved. Another important advantage is that the spring exhibits excellent performance in enduring thermo-mechanical stress. In terms of manufacture procedure, it is also comparatively simple. A 4 kW half-bridge power inverter module is fabricated to demonstrate the performance of the proposed pressure contact technique. Electrical, thermal and mechanical test results of the packaged device are reported. The results of both the simulation and experiment have proven that a good performance can be achieved by the proposed pressure contact technique for the medium power IPEMs.