The origin and consequences of push-pull breakdown in series connected dielectrics

Given the extensive literature on the dielectric failure probability ( F ) of single as well as sandwich capacitors, one might conclude that the overall failure probability of k series connected (SC) capacitors is simply given by the uncorrelated product of failure probabilities of single capacitors...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2011-12, Vol.99 (26), p.263506-263506-3
Main Authors: Masuduzzaman, Muhammad, Varghese, Dhanoop, Guo, Honglin, Krishnan, Srikanth, Alam, Muhammad Ashraful
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Given the extensive literature on the dielectric failure probability ( F ) of single as well as sandwich capacitors, one might conclude that the overall failure probability of k series connected (SC) capacitors is simply given by the uncorrelated product of failure probabilities of single capacitors, i.e., F = Π i = 1 i = k F i . Instead, in this paper, we show that the SC capacitors experience non-trivial oscillatory push-pull voltage sequence such that the breakdowns among the capacitors become strongly correlated, with important/nontrivial implications for the overall capacitor lifetime. We use a cell-based Monte Carlo approach to numerically establish the characteristic features of failure distribution associated with such correlated breakdown in the SC capacitors.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.3672216