Workbench Study of Loading Consequences on Reliability of DC-DC PoL Converters Based on Discrete Transistors

There is a trend toward increasing the reliability of the power electronics converters used in many applications. Parameters like reliability, efficiency, and power density often are quite opposable, so it is hard to get them all toghether. In this paper, investigation of the load resistor impact upon the overall reliability of a simple DC-DC PoL (Point-of-Load) converter is assessed. SA-TB130PCB-000 evaluation board having embedded synchronous buck converter was selected for testing and measuring MTBF for such a converter. Thermal scanning in infrared was performed in order to obtain the component capsule's temperature which is needed in stress factor calculation. Calculation follows the data provided by MIL-HDBK-217F rev.2 well known and accepted reliability standard.