Power electronics (PE) modules in inverter units are a critical part of the Hybrid/Electric vehicles drivetrain. During passive temperature cycling, the solder joint between the PE module and the baseplate develops cracks. A detailed reliability investigation was carried out on multiple physical variants under three temperature cycling profiles to uncover major influence parameters. A stress triaxiality and inelastic strain based FEM damage parameter was formulated which showed excellent correlation with experimental results.<eng>
