Electronics Use in Harsh Environments: Challenges and Perspectives

Electronics Use in Harsh Environments: Challenges and Perspectives provides a state-of-the-art review on environmental reliability issues in electronics in different technological applications due to exposure in harsh environments. This is an important issue today in relation to both high (power electronics) and low voltage applications as well as in connection with their use in various industrial sectors such as wind energy, solar, automotive, transport, and consumer electronic sectors. The book takes an application-based approach and covers environmental reliability studies in power electronics systems and components. Chapters focus on current applications, environmental reliability issues, and remedial measures that are available.

Relevant issues related to electronic processing/material use and corrosion issues, failure mechanisms due to high voltage, and thermal incidents caused by corrosion issues are also discussed in detail. The book will be a valuable reference source for academic and industrial researchers, materials scientists, and engineers, as well as corrosion specialists and all those involved in electronic reliability studies and electrification issues in transport, consumer goods and energy sectors.

• Focuses on humidity and corrosion-induced failures in electronic applications
• Discusses important component level problems such as IGBTs, integrated circuits, mechanistic aspects, and material and process related issues
• Covers this highly interdisciplinary field, with contributions from authors in different scientific backgrounds such as electronics, materials, and corrosion

Dr. Rajan Ambat is currently Professor of Corrosion and Surface Engineering at Section of Materials and Surface Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark. He is also the Manager for the CELCORR/CreCon Industrial Consortium on climatic reliability of electronics at DTU and Research Manager for the Corrosion node of Danish Hydrocarbon Research and Technology Centre. He has more than 15 years of expertise in the area of humidity and electronics, and developing mitigation strategies together with industries. This include electrochemical failure mechanisms at material, component, PCBA, and systems level, PCBA cleanliness issues and humidity interaction, modelling humidity interaction with electronics and pro-actively defining solutions. Prevention and predictive strategies include intrinsic and extrinsic methods for enhancing humidity robustness of electronics systems, not only the prevention methods based on corrosion and electrochemical understanding and coatings, but also using humidity flow modelling and climate data as a source of predictability for aggressiveness, and corrosion prediction sensors for electronic corrosion. Presently he is the Chairman for the Working Party on Corrosion reliability of electronic devices under European Federation of Corrosion and Board member, IMAPS Nordic, Europe. He has published extensively in a wide variety of topic connected to humidity and electronics.

Nando Kaminski works in the University of Bremen at the Institut für elektrische Antriebe, Leistungselektronik und Bauelemente, Germany.

Associate Professor Bálint Medgyes works in the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Budapest, Hungary.