LED Failure Analysis
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) Failure Analysis
LED failure analysis at SEM Lab, Inc. primarily finds that the LEDs fail due to thermal-mechanical stress that causes die attachment failure, wire bond and bond wire failures, and seal integrity problems.
Often a large thermal stress resulting from expansion mismatch between the lens material and the other materials used in the LED construction causes de-bonding of the lens material from the cup or the surface of the die. At SEM Lab, Inc. our LED failure analysis typically involves creating microsections and performing SEM/EDS analysis to characterize these failures.
A paper describing LED failure mechanisms we have seen at SEM Lab, Inc. can be found here.
SEM images and optical images of failures in light emitting diodes (LEDs) are shown below.
Other device failure analysis information:
LED Failure Analysis Examples
RGB LED side view.
RGB LED optical image..
LED die microsection.
Wedge bond at post.
ESD damage at contact edge.
Suspect die attach.