Issued Date:2024/07/05
Issued By:iST
What is accelerated reliability testing?
How does this testing benefit the electronics development or semiconductor industry?
Accelerated reliability testing (ART) is a Reliability Analyis (RA) developmental procedure designed to assess a product’s reliability under extreme stress conditions. Evolving from simple stress testing to complex models, ART accelerates the examination process mimicking decades of wear quickly to predict long-term product performance.
By employing statistical analysis and failure mode modeling, ART enables more accurate predictions of product lifetime under regular usage scenarios. By precipitating failure processes using stressors, engineers can identify and rectify flaws before market release. This approach expedites product validation, reinforcing design and manufacturing methods to meet stringent reliability criteria.
Understanding Accelerated Reliability Testing
Accelerated reliability testing anticipates product failures while predicting long-term performance under accelerated stresses. It applies stresses like temperature, vibration, and electrical loads beyond operational limits. For example, following the Arrhenius reaction rate theory, which quantifies the effect of temperature on chemical reaction rates, ART reduces the observation time for failure modes, elucidating how stressors impact product deterioration.
Mathematical models like the Eyring model for temperature and humidity or the Coffin-Manson model for mechanical fatigue are utilized to forecast product life under regular usage. For instance, an electronics semiconductor maker may utilize ART to anticipate the failure rates of a new chip design over a 10-year operating life. Failures that would commonly take years may be generated in months or weeks by raising the ambient temperature and operating voltage in a controlled test environment. Meanwhile, statistical distributions like Weibull or log-normal help estimate failure times from these accelerated settings to predict the chip’s dependability across its lifespan. This technique enables manufacturers to detect and fix reliability problems before launch, ensuring better product durability and performance.
Purpose of Accelerated Reliability Testing
Low Failure Scenarios
In industries like aerospace, where highly reliable components are essential, accelerated reliability testing (ART) plays a crucial role. Satellites, for instance, undergo ART to simulate years of operation in a short period. This testing helps engineers predict and address potential failures due to solder fatigue and semiconductor deterioration, as well as increased thermal cycles and radiation stress. It also uncovers hidden electronic faults early on, allowing manufacturers to improve designs for a better yield rate.
High Longevity Expectations
ART ensures durability for semiconductor applications requiring longevity. Accelerated aging methods simulate decades of operational conditions to assess semiconductor components’ reliability and performance under various stress factors. This testing helps ensure that semiconductor devices maintain their functionality and efficiency over extended periods of use, meeting the high longevity expectations in electronic systems.
High Wear Conditions
ART is essential for testing part durability in demanding industries like automotive and heavy equipment. Components undergo rigorous testing, including temperature, vibration, and humidity cycles, to simulate years of usage in a short period. This helps improve the longevity of tire compounds, brake materials, and heavy equipment parts, ensuring reliable operation under extreme conditions environments.
Methods of Accelerated Reliability Testing
Accelerated Reliability Testing (ART) involves subjecting a product to conditions (such as
stress,strain,temperature, voltage,vibrationand pressure) that exceed its normal service parameters to uncover faults and potential failure modes in a short period.By analyzing the product’s response to these tests, engineers can predict the product’s service life and maintenance intervals.Accelerated Life Testing (ALT)
Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) is an intensive method that exposes product flaws by subjecting them to extreme stress levels beyond normal usage. Unlike ART, which targets design flaws rather than predicting statistical life. By rapidly cycling through extreme temperatures, high bias levels and operational input signals, uncovers latent defects, and helps identify design defects early, preventing costly recalls, and promotes a design-for-reliability approach by pushing products to their limits.
Environmental Stress Screening (ESS)
Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) employs planned stress testing to detect and eliminate faulty items before they reach customers. This accelerated reliability testing assumes that manufacturing faults would lead to early product failures when subjected to slight stress beyond operating limits. Thermal cycling, vibration, and shock testing and burn-in testing help uncover and address latent manufacturing issues.
Unlike other accelerated reliability testing methods, ESS focuses on early-life failures rather than predicting product lifetime. By delivering only robust products, ESS reduces warranty costs and enhances customer satisfaction. Common testing methods include the Moisture Sensitivity Level Test (MSL Test) and temperature with humidity test, etc.
Burn-in Testing
Burn-in testing simulates extended periods of work environment by subjecting products to accelerated temperature and voltage changes in a short time. It divides the Bathtub Curve into three sections: Infant Mortality (Early Life Failure), Useful Life, and Wear Out. Various test methods are applied to detect different types of failures.
This method helps identify and eliminate components or systems prone to early failure. By running products at high temperatures or voltages for a specific duration, burn-in testing accelerates reliability assessment.
To address heat dissipation issues with AI chips for servers and high-performance computing (HPC), iST’s Reliability Lab employs advanced thermal management technologies, including liquid cooling systems with custom circulation sockets, which control the heat generated by ultra-high-power AI chips, maintaining test environment integrity.
Additionally, iST’s Reliability Lab uses a new design for Burn-in Modules (BI modules), testing only one chip per board. This approach allows for individualized test parameter settings based on the static leakage currents of each chip’s transistors, enhancing the quality of AI chip testing.
Get in touch with us if you want to learn more about Accelerated reliability testing (ART) or if you have any questions.