ELECTRONICS DESIGN FOR RELIABILITY

2-day course for electronics engineers and managers

Pat O'Connor

This course teaches the techniques of reliable design and development of electronic systems, including component reliability characteristics and applications, thermal design, electromagnetic interference and control, design for assembly, test and maintenance, testing for reliability, as well as general reliability engineering and management methods.

• Need for reliability in design
• Design to cost
• Failure patterns, learning effects
• Causes of failure, variation

Device Failure Modes

• Failure physics in semiconductors
• Technology trends
• Passive devices
• Connectors & connections
• Optoelectronics
• Component selection, test, screening
• Use of standards & databooks

Design Analysis Techniques

• Reliability prediction (methods, limitations)
• Failure Modes, Effects & Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
• Sneak Analysis
• CAE implementations

Stress Analysis & Derating

• Stress analysis (electrical, thermal, Arrhenius Law)
• Derating methods & guidelines
• Other environmental effects (vibration, moisture, dynamic/transient effects, storage, combined effects)
• Protection methods

Variation

• Nature of engineering variation: processes, parameters, environments
• Parameter drift
• Worst Case Analysis (WCA)
• Tolerance analysis
• Statistical experiments, Taguchi method
• CAE Implementations

EMI/EMC/EOS/ESD

• EMI principles &sources
• EMI in modern systems
• EMI protection
• EMC regulations
• Electrostatic damage & protection

Software Reliability

• Software failure causes
• Software design for reliability
• Analysis & test methods

Testing

• Environmental test
• Reliability test (growth, demonstration)
• Accelerated test, stress screens, HALT/HASS
• Statistical experiments, Taguchi
• Integrated test programs

Production Aspects

• Design for production
• Test methods: ATE, in-circuit & functional test, BIST/BITE
• Boundary scan, ASIC testing
• Design for test, testability analysis
• Test & failure costs
• Quality control, SPC

Maintenance

• Design for maintenance
• Test, repair
• Optimized & reliability centered maintenance (RCM)

Failure Data

• Data collection
• "7 tools": Pareto analysis, measles charts, SPC, etc.
• Probability plotting

Management Aspects

• Managing for reliability: team creation, motivation, training
• Relevance of standards (ISO 9000, etc.)
• Total quality, costs, competition