InsightsReliable Power Electronics for E-Mobility
How to identify failure risks in high-voltage components at an early stage and improve reliability and cost efficiency in electric vehicle production.
E-Mobility Balancing Reliability and Cost Efficiency
Electric vehicles place demanding requirements on the reliability of their electronic systems. At the same time, manufacturers face increasing cost pressure. The objective is therefore not to add as many safeguards as possible to the production process, but to identify technical risks early and reduce them specifically where they are relevant.
ZESTRON supports OEMs and electronics manufacturers in assessing reliability risks in high-voltage and power electronics, identifying critical influencing factors, and deriving appropriate measures for development, validation and series production.
EFFICIENCY MEETS RELIABILITY Managing Production Risks Effectively
The reliability of electric vehicles is critical to customer satisfaction, product safety and long-term market success. Electronic components and systems must perform reliably throughout their intended service life, even under demanding environmental conditions.
At the same time, manufacturing processes must remain cost-efficient. Additional cleanliness requirements, extensive monitoring or cleanroom concepts can significantly increase production costs. A technically sound risk assessment is therefore required to distinguish between genuinely critical influencing factors and unnecessarily high safety margins.
ZESTRON considers not only individual failure modes, but also the interaction between components, surfaces, contamination, moisture, insulation design and the manufacturing process. This allows measures to be aligned with the actual technical risk.
challenge Identifying Risks in High-Voltage Electronics at an Early Stage
OBCs, DC/DC converters and other high-voltage components in electric vehicles must remain reliable under moisture, temperature cycling and long-term electrical stress. Particles, ionic contamination or moisture ingress can impair electrical insulation and promote failure mechanisms such as leakage currents, electrochemical migration (ECM), dendrite formation or short circuits.
Insulation coordination plays a key role in this context. Standards such as IEC 60664-1 provide a basis for determining clearances, creepage distances and solid insulation. However, the actual robustness of a system also depends on factors such as material properties, pollution degree, moisture, surface condition and the electrical stresses encountered in the application.
A particular challenge is that moisture- or ageing-related weaknesses are often not visible during production. They may only become apparent during validation testing or later in field operation. Early technical risk assessment therefore helps identify potential weaknesses before series release and reduce the risk of costly failures or recalls.
ACCELERATED HIGH-VOLTAGE TESTING Assessing Risks Before Validation
To investigate potential failure risks before extensive validation stress testing, ZESTRON uses accelerated high-voltage stress tests. These tests allow critical weaknesses to be evaluated under defined electrical and climatic conditions.
The results provide a sound basis for assessing insulation coordination and for evaluating relevant influencing factors such as moisture, contamination, spacing, material properties and surface condition. Risks can therefore be identified earlier and appropriate measures can be considered during development and process design.
This approach also makes it possible to critically review established production measures. Cleanrooms, additional monitoring steps or particularly strict cleanliness requirements are not automatically necessary for every application. A technical risk assessment helps determine which measures actually contribute to reliability and where targeted cleaning processes or other specific adaptations may provide a more cost-effective solution.
This enables high reliability requirements to be met without unnecessarily overengineering the production process.
Assistance ModulesFrom Technical Assessment to Concrete Measures
ZESTRON’s expertise in insulation coordination, high-voltage stress testing and the assessment of surfaces and contamination helps systematically narrow down critical influencing factors and derive suitable measures.
Depending on the specific challenge, ZESTRON Assistance Modules provide support ranging from root-cause analysis for validation or field failures to the preventive assessment of technical risks. Analytical results are not considered in isolation, but in the context of component design, materials, the manufacturing process and actual operating conditions.
Technical issues arising during the PPAP validation process can also be assessed at an early stage. In addition, ZESTRON supports development teams in considering suitable measures during the design phase and reducing potential failure risks before series release.
Whitepaper-CollectionAnalytical Approach to Implementing Insulation Coordination
At voltages from 400 V to 1200 V, standard tables are no longer sufficient. This white paper presents three key factors for analytical risk assessment – enabling well-founded decisions on pollution degree, system size, and weight.
