To characterize the thermal performance of high power insulated gate bipolar transistor(IGBT)module, a transient thermal impedance measurement device based on the electrical method for IGBT module was designed and built. By changing heating pulse duration of the measurement device equal to the thermal time constants of different material layers, the effective thermal conduction paths in IGBT module can be controlled and the transient thermal impedance of each component within the IGBT module can be obtained. In addition, the impacts of the transient noise in the instant transformation of high-low level and the boundary heat condition on measurement accuracy were discussed. Results show that the device has good accuracy and repeatability, which will prove useful in analyzing the thermal dispersion performance of different devices and packaging materials under transient conditions accurately and nondestructively and guiding the IGBT module structure design and packaging material selection. © 2017, Editorial Board of Journal of Tianjin University(Science and Technology). All right reserved.