Power Cycling Testing for Power Semiconductor Switches: Methods, Standards, Limitations, and Outlooks

Reliability is a critical performance metric for power semiconductor switches and power electronic systems. Yet guidance on how to test and quantify that reliability is fragmented in the existing literature, particularly with the rapid adoption of wide-bandgap (WBG) devices and novel packaging technologies. This review brings guidance on what designers, reliability engineers, and researchers need to know about power cycling testing (PCT). We provide three major contents: first, introducing how new materials and packaging shift dominant failure mechanisms; second, comparing the main PCT standards joint electron device engineering council (JEDEC), automotive electronics council (AEC), international electrotechnical commission (IEC), and automotive qualification guideline (AQG) and explaining why the “test-to-fail” standard principle is overtaking legacy “test-to-pass” rules; and third, summarizing the unique challenges and existing solutions of applying PCT methods to WBG and ultra-WBG devices. Notably, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first in-depth analysis of the newly released IEC 60749-34:2025 and AQG 324:2025, benchmarked against their earlier editions. Moreover, by collecting more than 200 testing samples from the existing literature, we also offer the first generic lifetime model that spans Si, SiC, multiple bond-wire materials, and die-attach technologies. Finally, the limitations and associated open questions are discussed to identify future research opportunities.