FBG Head Size Influence on Localized On-Chip Thermal Measurement in IGBT Power Modules

This article studies the influence of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) head length on insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) direct on-chip thermal sensing performance of FBG sensors. To this end, the surface of a commercial IGBT chip is thermally simulated and experimentally characterized. Uniform FBG sensors with three head sizes are then tested in two promising thermal sensing locations. The study has found that the large thermal gradients in this application create an additional constraint when using longer head lengths. A distortion in the reflected spectrum of the 5-mm FBG sensor is used to illustrate the underlying physical effect, which causes this limitation for IGBT junction temperature measurement. This additionally affects the length of head sizes providing accurate temperature readings of the IGBT surface hotspots, and significantly, this limit is location-dependent in a given IGBT geometry.