Willem D. van Driel

• Prof. Dr. Ir.
• Fellow Scientist at Signify

Abstract— The heat produced within the device in its package depends on the power supplied to each IP block. The improper placement of an IP block with high power consumption can become a reliability risk for IC packages, as it can significantly affect the reliability of solder balls due to thermal, mechanical, and electrical factors. It also mitig...

Electronic components are complex systems consisting of a combination of different materials, which undergo degenerative changes over time following the second law of thermodynamics. The loss of their quality or functionality is reflected in degraded performance or behaviour of electronic components, which can lead to failures during their operatio...

This paper investigates the effects of three ageing factors (chemical, humidity, and temperature) and their interactions on the physical properties and degradation of silicone sealant used in microelectronic applications. The thermal degradation of silicone sealants was investigated by exposing samples to temperatures in the range of 150 up to 175...

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), advantageous in high energy density and flexibility, is promising as a sustainable energy source but can hardly be used to power edge devices directly due to its high-voltage AC output and varying capacitive impedance. To address it, this work proposes a power-conditioning interface with a fully integrated dual s...

The reliability requirements of electronic packages for safety-critical applications have spurred developments in real-time monitoring of components. A key aspect of these advancements is the availability of physical health sensing elements and failure-predicting algorithms that can be embedded within the IC. Here, 4-wire resistance measurement fea...

This book describes the latest progress in reliability analysis of microelectronic products. The content grows out of an EU project, named Intelligent Reliability 4.0 - iRel40 (see www.irel40.eu ). Different industrial sectors and topics are covered, such as electronics in automotive, rail transport, lighting and personal appliances. Several case s...

In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of defect formation at the atomic level in interfaces and gate oxides, focusing on two primary defect types: interface traps and oxide traps. We summarize the current theoretical models and experimental observations related to these intrinsic defects, as they critically impact device performance an...

Power MOSFET dies in the automotive industry are becoming larger (>5 × 5 mm) and thinner (<50 µm) to meet high-performance and lifetime requirements. Ensuring the mechanical robustness of these large ultrathin chips is crucial for reliable electronic devices and high-throughput packaging processes. The high aspect ratio and advanced chip designs in...

Machine learning (ML) has become popular in the industrial sector as it helps to improve operations, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. However, deploying and managing ML models in production environments can be complex. This is where Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) comes in. MLOps aims to facilitate this deployment and management process....

Electronic packages with solder interconnects, such as Chip Scale Packages (CSP) and Ball Grid Arrays (BGA), are extensively utilized in various applications, including cell phones, smartwatches, and electric vehicles. The advancements in technology and the features within these applications have led to an increase in power cycles within the packag...

Machine learning (ML) has become popular in the industrial sector as it helps to improve operations, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. However, deploying and managing ML models in production environments can be complex. This is where Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) comes in. MLOps aims to facilitate this deployment and management process....

Digital Twins (DT) play a key role in Industry 4.0 applications, and the technology is in the process of being mature. Since its conceptualisation, it has been heavily contextualised and often misinterpreted as being merely a virtual model. Thus, it is crucial to define it clearly and have a deeper understanding of its architecture, workflow, and i...

Resin-reinforced Ag sintering materials represent a promising solution for die-attach applications in high-power devices requiring enhanced reliability and heat dissipation. However, the presence of resin and intricate microstructure poses challenges to its thermal performance, and improvement strategies remain unclear. This work utilizes 3D FIB-SE...

Silver sintering offers a promising landscape for Pb-free die attachment in electronics packaging. However, the sintered interface properties are highly process-dependent and deviate from bulk silver properties. Conventional measurement methods do not adequately capture the die-attach application geometry. Hence, this study introduces a novel metho...

Solder joint failure is one of the most common board-level failure modes in electronic components. It is crucial for a next-generation reliability assessment method to have an in-situ health monitoring system in place to evaluate the current state of degradation. This is achieved by specialized embedded sensors and processing the data on the edge....

Semiconductor devices are commonly encapsulated with Epoxy-based Moulding Compounds (EMC) to form an electronic package. EMC typically occupies a large volume within a package, and thus, governs its thermomechanical behaviour. When exposed to high temperatures (150 °C and above), electronic packages predominantly show oxidation of the outer layer o...

Model order reduction techniques are developed and utilized to make numerical simulations more efficient. The use of Reduce Order Models (ROM) also enables data exchange with external parties without disclosing the sensitive information present in a Full-Order Model (FOM). It is crucial to optimize for both the efficiency and accuracy of a ROM to k...

This study introduces a training protocol utilizing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Confocal Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (CSAM) imaging techniques to classify Power Quad Flat No-leads (PQFN) package delamination. The investigation involves empty PQFN packages with varied substrate metallizations subjected to thermal cycling. Four delamina...

This paper introduces an online condition monitoring strategy that utilizes a transient heat pulse to detect package thermal performance degradation. The metric employed is the temperature-dependent transient thermal impedance ”Zth(t,Tamb).” The proposed methodology offers quantitative insights into the package thermal performance degradation and e...

Lifetime analyses are crucial for ensuring the durability of new Light-emitting Diodes (LEDs) and uncertainty quantification (UQ) is necessary to quantify a lack of usable failure and degradation data. This work presents a new framework for predicting the lifetime of LEDs in terms of lumen maintenance, effectively quantifying the natural variabilit...

This study explores a novel approach to monitor the spectral emission of LEDs by estimating the spectral power distribution from the spectral sensor responses during an accelerated ageing experiment. Two methods for reconstructing the actual LED spectra from sensor responses are presented and tested, one solely requires sensor datasheet information...

This article introduces a thermal characterization method to estimate the effective thermal conductivity of thin bond line interfaces with high-conductive materials. Sintered silver die-attach interfaces in electronic packaging are expected to produce a thermally good conductive medium, but their interface properties are process-dependent. Besides,...

This paper investigates methods for evaluating the explainability of transformer models analyzing time series data, a largely unexplored area in the field of explainable AI (XAI). The study focuses on application-grounded methods involving human subject experiments with domain experts. On-site evaluations were conducted in two industrial settings i...

In this chapter, the past and present situations of the reliability domain are discussed. As of today, most industries are in the transfer from test-to-pass approaches to more advanced strategies. These strategies currently are to determine the reliability capability by applying (where possible) the test-to-failure concept, extending reliability qu...

The future of reliability is bright as each electronics company is spending 1–5% of their annual sales on cost of non-quality. These costs are related to product failures prior to the end of its warranty period. If even a portion of these costs are reduced, it would result in a substantial profit increase. Progress in the area of reliability can be...

The main driver behind the wide adoption of the Digital Twin concept is the increasing digitalization of development and manufacturing processes combined with the demand to monitor and influence the product behavior along its whole life cycle which has brought Digital Twin concept to where it is today. In this chapter, we have described the Digital...

Solder fatigue is a key failure mode in the electronic industry. Monitoring the actual degradation of the solder under real-time conditions in any application would be extremely beneficial. In this chapter, we describe the combination of experimental material characterization with numerical finite element (FE) simulations to obtain a prognostics an...

The various application scenarios of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) have attracted increasing research interest, while one of the biggest challenges is the energy extraction efficiency. Due to the small and time-varying inherent capacitor in a TENG, the previous energy extraction techniques e.g., full-bridge rectifier (FBR) and bias-flip (BF) r...

Machine learning (ML) has become a popular tool in the industrial sector as it helps to improve operations, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. However, deploying and managing ML models in production environments can be complex. This is where Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) comes in. MLOps aims to streamline this deployment and management pr...

Integrated Circuits and Electronic Modules experience concentrated thermal hot spots, which require advanced thermal solutions for effective distribution and dissipation of heat. The superior thermal properties of diamonds are long known, and it is an ideal material for heat-spreading applications. However, growing diamond films to the electronic s...

Resin-reinforced silver (Ag) sintering material is an effective and highly reliable solution for power electronics packaging. The hybrid material’s process parameters strongly influence its microstructure and pose a significant challenge in estimating its effective properties as a thin interconnect layer. This research demonstrates a novel 3D recon...

We report on the degradation mechanisms and dynamics of silicone encapsulated ultraviolet A (UV-A) high-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs), with a peak wavelength of ${\mathrm {365~ \text {n} \text {m} }}$ . The stress tests were carried out for a period of 8665 hours with forward currents between ${\mathrm {350~ \text {m} \text {A} }}$ and ${...

Board level vibration testing is intended to assess prediction of the reliability of solder joint interconnects that are formed between electronic components and printed circuit boards (PCB). Frailties in the stress test experiment might lead to false board level reliability (BLR) evaluations. Therefore, it is essential to have a well-characterized...

We report on the degradation dynamics and mechanisms of the commercially available chip-on-board (COB) high-power light-emitting diode (LED) modules with an electrical power of 175 W. Due to the associated thermal load, the temperature dependence of the aging processes is additionally analyzed within the scope of this work. The aging tests were per...

The risk of corrosion poses a challenge to meet the stringent reliability requirements of microelectronic devices that are used in harsh environments. Microelectronic devices are often encapsulated in polymer packaging materials, which protect them from corrosion. These polymers are, however, not completely hermetic and thus allow small amounts of...

Epoxy Mold Compounds (EMC) are used to protect integrated circuits (IC) from environmental influences, with one of these influences being moisture ingress, causing corrosion. To obtain the needed thermal and mechanical properties EMCs require a high loading of (silica) fillers, introducing a large amount of interface. While silane coupling agents p...

With an increasing demand for high-power electronics, the need to meet stringent automotive norms and better understand the critical failure mechanisms are crucial in order to improve their reliablity. To that end, we developed an in-situ reliability monitoring setup capable of actively measuring the thermal performance of the package during lifeti...

Reliability is an essential scientific and technological domain intrinsically linked with system integration. Nowadays, semiconductor industries are confronted with ever-increasing design complexity, dramatically decreasing design margins, increasing chances for and consequences of failures, shortening of product development and qualification time,...

In the foregoing chapters, the reliability of organic compounds in microelectronics and optoelectronics was discussed. It provided a state of the art in reliability concepts for materials used in electronic products. It also enlightened the direction in reliability concepts for these products. In this chapter, we discuss the outlook where we envisi...

Reliability is an essential scientific and technological domain intrinsically linked with system integration. Nowadays, semiconductor industries are confronted with ever-increasing design complexity, dramatically decreasing design margins, increasing chances for and consequences of failures, shortening of product development and qualification time,...

In this chapter, degradation mechanisms of optical materials, used in the light-emitting diode (LED)-based products, are explained. This chapter aims at describing the service conditions on the degradation mechanisms of different organic optical materials in LEDs which lead to the color shift of the light output. The contributions of different degr...

The unique radiative, photometric and colorimetric characteristic of a light-emitting diode is derived from its spectral power distribution. Modeling such characteristics with respect to the forward current, temperature or operating time has been subject of various studies. Deriving a simple analytical model, however, is not trivial due to the uniq...

Reliability of electronic drivers, or systems, is crucial for the business of Signify. We manufacture and sell more than a million drivers per year. Field returns taught us what failure modes are important, but this is not sufficient to provide lifetime claims for our products. Being in this business for almost a century, in order to provide detail...

Building on many discoveries and inventions, electronics started affecting people’s everyday lives in a significant fashion following the invention of the first solid state transistor in late 1940s. The miniaturization paved way for the mass electronics production and later the digital revolution, the outcomes of which are visible to all members of...

It is known that quantitative measures for the reliability of software systems can be derived from software reliability models. And, as such, support the product development process. Over the past four decades, research activities in this area have been performed. As a result, many software reliability models have been proposed. It was shown that,...

This paper investigates the photocatalytic characteristics of Ag nanowire (AgNW)/TiO2 and AgNW/TiO2/graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposites. Samples were synthesized by the direct coating of TiO2 particles on the surface of silver nanowires. As-prepared AgNW/TiO2 and AgNW/TiO2/GO nanocomposites were characterized by electron microscopy, X-ray diffractio...

The increased system complexity in electronic products brings challenges in a system level reliability assessment and lifetime estimation. Traditionally, the graph model-based reliability block diagrams (RBD) and fault tree analysis (FTA) have been used to assess the reliability of products and systems. However, these methods are based on determini...

Correction for ‘The inactivation mechanism of chemical disinfection against SARS-CoV-2: from MD and DFT perspectives’ by Chunjian Tan et al. , RSC Adv. , 2020, 10 , 40480–40488, DOI: 10.1039/D0RA06730J.

The invention also relates to a method of manufacturing a solid state light emitter package.

Exploring effective disinfection methods and understanding their mechanisms on the new coronavirus is becoming more active due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). By combining molecular dynamics and first-principles calculations, we investigate the interaction mech...

Light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) are among the key innovations that have revolutionized the lighting industry, due to their versatility in applications, higher reliability, longer lifetime, and higher efficiency compared with other light sources. The demand for increased lifetime and higher reliability has attracted a significant number of research stu...

It is known that quantitative measures for the reliability of software systems can be derived from software reliability models, and, as such, support the product development process. Over the past four decades, research activities in this area have been performed. As a result, many software reliability models have been proposed. It was shown that,...

The reliability of LEDs decreases in moist environments. One potential gateway of moisture ingress, reducing the product lifetime is the lens. In white LEDs, phosphor particles are embedded into the optical silicone of the lens to convert the blue light emitted by the diode down in frequency and achieve a light output that appears white. In this st...

This paper aims to investigate the synthesis, structure, and optical properties of SiO2@YAG:Ce core–shell optical nanoparticles for solid state lighting applications. YAG:Ce phosphor is a key part in white light emitting diodes (LEDs), with its main functionality being the generation of yellow light. Generated yellow light from phosphor will be com...

Traditional lighting is focused on the prevention of hardware failures. With the trend towards controlled and connected systems, other components will start playing an equal role in the reliability of it. Here reliability needs to be replaced by availability and other modeling approaches are to be considered. System prognostics and health managemen...

In the coming decade, the development in the area of More than Moore will certainly take over from Moore’s Law. Sensor development and sensor integration will prevail above lower node development. New packaging solutions will be developed which will fuel the integration of sensors. These developments can still be silicon based but where harsh envir...

Nowadays many applications require optical detection of some sorts, ranging from civil to military fields. Depending on the optical source, each sensing element needs to have distinct properties with the spectral range at the top. Choices such as sensitivity and environment play an equally important role, if not more important. The properties of th...

Microelectromechanical systems: miniaturised device for high-resolution acceleration measurements A micromechanical system (MEMS) has been developed that allows accurate measurement of acceleration at high-resolution levels. Commercially available gravimeters and seismometers can be used for high-resolution measurement of the earth’s acceleration,...

In general, packaging materials which encapsulate light emitting diodes (LEDs) and microelectronic devices offer barrier protection against several environmental hazards such as water and ionic contaminants. However, these encapsulants may provide pathways for water and ionic contaminants to reach the metal/polymer interfaces and provoke local corr...

This book describes for readers various technical outcomes from the EU-project IoSense. The authors discuss sensor integration, including LEDs, dust sensors, LIDAR for automotive driving and 8 more, demonstrating their use in simulations for the design and fabrication of sensor systems. Readers will benefit from the coverage of topics such as senso...

In this paper, degradation mechanisms of optical materials, used in the light emitting diode (LED)-based products, are reviewed. The LED lighting is one of the fastest technology shifts in human history. Lighting accounts for almost 20% of the global electrical energy use, inferring that replacement of traditional lighting sources with LEDs with hi...

Adhesion and delamination have been pervasive problems hampering the performance and reliability of micro- and nano-electronic devices. In order to understand, predict, and ultimately prevent interface failure in electronic devices, development of accurate, robust, and efficient delamination testing and prediction methods is crucial. Adhesion is es...

Degradation mechanisms of silicone plates under harsh environment conditions are studied in this investigation. Environmental degradation of silicone free form, used as secondary optics in Light Emitting Diode LED lighting lamps and luminaires or any other applications requiring high quality optics being used, has negative implications for the opti...

Lumen depreciation is one of the major failure modes in light-emitting diode (LED) systems. It originates from the degradation of the different components within the system, including the chip, the driver, and the optical materials (i.e., phosphorous layer). The kinetics of degradation in real-life applications is relatively slow, and in most cases...

In the past 4 years we have witnessed a change in quality and reliability to make the marked introduction of solid-state lighting (SSL) successful. LED penetration levels have reached values of 10–30%, depending on the application. The number and variety of LED packages and, thus, associated LED-based products, have significantly increased in the p...

This chapter gives an extensive overview into the nature of the environment that luminaires and thus LEDs are subjected to during the event of a lightning stroke. Direct lightning stroke almost always results in instant damage for low-voltage connected devices, except in “extraordinary circumstances” where random components may survive. This is usu...

Traditional lighting is focused on the prevention of hardware failures. With the trend toward controlled and connected systems, other components will start playing an equal role in the reliability of it. Here reliability need to be replaced by availability, and other modeling approaches are to be taken into account. Software reliability can only be...

Commercial claims for LED-based products in terms of lumen maintenance are fully based on TM-21 extrapolations using LM-80 data. This chapter indicates that there may be a risk in doing this as TM-21 only relies on the behavior of the average LED degradation, instead of taking into account the degradation of all individual LEDs. Therefore, we propo...

This chapter investigates the reliability of the integrated LED lamps with electrolytic capacitor-less LED drivers. Firstly, the impact of the interaction between the degradations of the LED light source and the driver on the lumen depreciation is studied. The electronic-thermal simulation was carried out to obtain the history of temperatures of LE...

Color stability is of major concern for LED-based products. Currently, much effort is done on lumen maintenance, and for color shift, no agreed method currently exists, be it from testing or from prediction side. To investigate the physics of color shift, we present experiments of each individual part failure of each individual part that are presen...