Modern power electronics design is more complex than ever. Even when a circuit looks flawless on paper, products can still fail in the field, sometimes years after they were first put into service.
A white paper by Wilfried Wessel of Siemens Digital Industries Software examines why traditional workflows are no longer sufficient and how intelligent, automated methods can transform reliability, performance, and development speed. The paper explains how the Power Delivery Network (PDN), responsible for stable voltage supply on a PCB, is influenced by factors that traditional design workflows cannot fully capture. Four predominant failure mechanisms are identified: improper PCB stackup, capacitor degradation over time, thermal and environmental stress, and operating components beyond their specified limits.
