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Implementation and Design of a Novel Student Developed Modular HTOL/HTRB System Using Thermoelectric Control

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Electrical and Computer Division Technical Session 5

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37295

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37295

Download Count

417

Paper Authors

biography

Nathaniel J. O'Neal Naval Postgraduate School

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Graduate Student at Naval Post-Graduate School, Electrical Engineering Dept.
B.S. Electrical Engineering, United States Naval Academy
B.S. Computer Engineering, United States Naval Academy

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Matthew A. Porter Naval Postgraduate School

biography

Christopher Adrian Martino United States Naval Academy Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-8577-4579

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Commander Chris Martino is a Permanent Military Professor and the Associate Chair for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the United States Naval Academy. He was commissioned a General Unrestricted Line Ensign through NROTC at the University of Notre Dame after receiving his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering. He achieved a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has completed the Bettis Reactor Engineering School and was granted an Associates Degree in Italian from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. He has worked as an Engineer, Instrumentation and Control Division, NAVSEA 08K (Office of Naval Nuclear Propulsion), Crystal City, VA; as Assistant Operations Officer and Alfa Company Commander with U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion FIVE, Port Hueneme, CA; Program Manager for Electrical Transmission and Distribution Contracts, Iraq Project and Contracting Office (PCO), Baghdad, Iraq; Assistant Public Works Officer, Program Management Officer, Operations Officer, AROICC, ROICC, and Facilities, Engineering and Acquisition Division Director, Public Works Department, NAS Sigonella, Sicily; Seabee Enlisted Community Manager (BUPERS-325D), NSA Millington, Millington, TN; and Assistant Current Operations Officer (N3C1) and Current Operations Officer (N3C), Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC), JEB Little Creek-Fort Story, VA. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the state of California; a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, SAME, and the Acquisition Professional Community; completed JPME Level I through the Air Command and Staff College; and is a Seabee Combat Warfare Officer.

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Abstract

Addressing reliability issues is critical to the successful design and implementation of new semiconductor material systems proposed for next generation power electronic devices. For military systems, reliability is central to successful device designs, often outweighing other design factors. Several reliability testing schemes are central to validating power semiconductor device reliability. Of these, high temperature operating life (HTOL) and high temperature reverse bias (HTRB) testing are often used as go/no-go metrics for the success or failure of a fabricated lot of devices. To educate students in the importance of these testing regimens for devices, several undergraduate and graduate students have developed a custom, modular thermoelectrically cooled and controlled HTOL/HTRB system which allows for joint long term HTOL/HTRB testing at both institutions. Under constraints for cost, the system was designed to utilize a novel thermoelectric cooling scheme to provide a temperature range of 55 °C from 5 °C to 62 °C with less than 0.5 °C variation under 15 W heat load from devices-under-test (DUTs). A hermetic DUT environment was designed using nitrogen purging and active humidity sensing to control relative humidity (RH) within the environment to beneath 5% RH. Undergraduate students gained experience designing for manufacturability and machining with CAD tools not typically explored in typical electrical engineering design projects. An automated switch-matrix was designed and implemented to automate testing and allow for programming of complex stress-measure-stress reliability testing profiles. Control and automation was enabled using common MBED processors used throughout an undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum. To accomplish a unified design which could be installed at multiple locations, students investigated and implemented a server rack mounted design which uses commonly available banana and BNC connections for “plug-and-play” of the system. A control program was developed using a LabVIEW program which managed the system wide control and programming of different reliability testing regimens, such as stress-measure-stress, stepped-stress, and constant current, voltage, or power testing. Results for the fabricated system performance are shown demonstrating the successful achievement of the design metrics. To demonstrate the use of the system, results from recent undergraduate student led HTOL testing on novel GaN Schottky diode parts are presented. Current and future senior capstone and masters-level research projects using the novel system are reviewed.

O'Neal, N. J., & Porter, M. A., & Martino, C. A. (2021, July), Implementation and Design of a Novel Student Developed Modular HTOL/HTRB System Using Thermoelectric Control Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37295

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