Future surface ships will place extreme demands on power electronic systems. Power electronic component packaging used in many current and future power modules will require precise manufacturing processes to meet these tough operational demands.  The objective of this project is to help meet these demands by creating a resident capability for packaging and testing power electronic devices for US Navy systems.  This capability will specifically address the materials and assembly techniques used in power modules and high power RF device packages.   The EMPF will design the Lab, procure the proper assembly and test equipment, and qualify the Lab’s ability to create high performance, high reliability power electronic devices. The new power electronics assembly and packaging laboratory at the EMPF will help the US Navy obtain manufacturing capabilities needed to take advantage of the full potential of emerging advanced power electronics technologies. 

The use of reliable power electronics is critical to future DDG 1000 and other future surface ship platforms.  Furthermore, several demands will be placed on future power systems used in US Navy ship programs. Specifically, the following issues must be addressed when considering insertion of new technologies into advanced all-electric ship platforms.

• Power electronics used in advanced ship platforms must provide higher current density, switch at higher frequencies, and operate at higher temperatures.
  
  
• Power electronics packages available today are not designed or built to meet environmental and operational demands.
  
  
• The risks associated with inserting advanced devices on board future DDG 1000 and other future surface ships must be mitigated.
  
  
• Power electronic systems must be reliable, maintainable, and supportable. 
  
  
• New technologies must be thoroughly tested and failures anticipated prior to implementation.
  
  
• Advanced power devices must be applied to power systems used in future surface ship platforms.

The power electronics assembly and packaging laboratory will analyze, repackage, and test advanced semiconductor electronics.  The COE will also provide a source for the development of packaging materials for technologies such as wide band gap and advanced semiconductor devices.  This development and testing will be essential to aid and shorten the development cycle for future DDG 1000 and other advanced surface ships.

The Lab will house an impressive range of equipment and capabilities as listed in Table 3-1. This equipment set gives the power packaging lab the capability to produce a wide variety of prototype packaging options from hermetic single and multi-chip packages to System in Package (SiP) on laminate, ceramic, glass, AlSiC, CuSic and other substrate materials. 

The advanced cold plate development station offers rapid
analysis of novel cold plate designs. Together with the simulation capability, the EMPF will be able to tune its thermal modeling based on real data, ultimately fostering a highly accurate
simulation model. This will reduce development cost and quicken discovery of better thermal management solutions.

The combination of best in class packaging equipment, thermal simulation, thermal measurement capability, and device level diagnostics are the foundations upon which future systems for power, RF, and advanced packaging technology will advance rapidly.