Project SCALE RH: Power Electronics Reliability Testing Program Engineering First Time Researcher (FTR) Fellowship Term Spring 2026 Status Closed Research Area Microelectronics, Reliability, Radiation Hardening Description This project is restricted to Purdue SCALE Students. Please go to the SCALE FTR Page in the SCALE group on nanoHUB to read the full project description and requirements: https://nanohub.org/groups/scale/research/purdue/ftr . All questions about this project should go to the faculty and mentor listed on the project description. Abbreviated description: Commercial off-the-shelf power electronics are used in a wide range of environments because of their high capabilities (e.g., in consumer electronics, or electric vehicles). While they are generally qualified for the market before commercial sale, most manufacturers don’t have rapid ways to track or predict aging in situ or provide an early warning before potential failure. In this project, we'll select a novel commercial device to test and develop a test procedure for testing in an extreme environment. The methodology has been successfully applied to commercial Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memories (EEPROMs) in prior work. We will aim to test a novel commercial power electronic device that has not been tested before in this project. Supervisor Peter A Bermel Mentor Sheng-wen Huang Type of work required In this project, we'll select a novel commercial power electronic device to test, and develop a test procedure for testing. This includes preparation and set up of the device in the test facility (electronic probe station), as well as the analysis of the results from a statistical point of view. This will then be used to observe correlations in aging between different regions or components of these devices, and to make predictions about future performance. Websites - https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~pbermel/
- https://nanohub.org/groups/scale/research/purdue/ftr
Qualifications 1. You must be a SCALE student to be considered for this project. SCALE Students: Please check that your IDP and other information (resume, Linked In, Career Goals, etc.) in the SCALE Web App is up to date. If you are not yet a SCALE student, you can concurrently apply to SCALE and to this FTR project. Read more about SCALE and access the SCALE application link here: https://www.scale4me.org/students. 2. Preferred Majors: - ECE, ME, MSE. All Engineering majors can apply. 3. Academic Years Eligible: - Juniors and seniors with the desired experience will be preferred, but all undergraduates are also eligible to apply. 4. Required Experience and Skills: - Experience with programming in Python, C/C++, and/or MATLAB. 5. Desired Experience and Skills: - Enthusiasm for statistical analysis of devices. - Understanding of electronics and electromagnetism. - Courses helpful to have previously taken (or at least signed up for) o ECE 20001 (Electrical Engineering Fundamentals I) and o ECE 20007 (Electrical Engineering Fundamentals Lab) Credit Hours 0 Weekly Hours 10 (estimated)