Early Degradation Detection of the Insulation Resistance of Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors by the Pattern Analysis of Capacitance and Dissipation Signals

Abstract

Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCCs) are common components in electronics to perform useful functions, such as noise reduction, direct current blocking, filtering, and energy storage. Reduction in the insulation resistance of MLCCs is often reported as their common failure mode and may adversely affect the reliability of electronics. While high resistance meter is often used to measure insulation resistance, it may not be appropriate for in-situ health monitoring of electronics due to delays per each measurement for charging the MLCCs under test. This paper proposes an approach for in-situ health monitoring using other electrical parameters of MLCCs, capacitance and dissipation factor. By applying a multivariate discretization technique, we extract meaningful patterns of the two parameters' trend during a certain period of time prior to the insulation resistance degradation. The degrees of significance for the extracted patterns are assessed based on the frequency of occurrence for each pattern. As a result, the onset of degradation has been detected using the extracted patterns and their degrees of significance.