The HTOL King Has No Clothes

The HTOL King Has No Clothes by Dr. Joseph Bernstein 

$200 per person Group discounts available!  2 hours

Modern Reliability Prediction Requires Multiple Accelerated Life Tests
To this day, the users of our most sophisticated electronic systems that include opto-electronic, photonic, MEMS device, etc. are expected to rely on a simple reliability value (FIT) published by the supplier. FIT is incorrectly determined today due to the product qualification use of HTOL (High Temperature Operating Life) and JEDEC or other standards. Manufacturers reports ‘zero-failure’ data from single-point tests using a single-mechanism model to fit an expected MTTF at the operator’s nominal expected ‘use’ conditions, giving erroneous and misleading results.

The zero-failure qualification is well known as a very expensive exercise providing nearly no useful information to the user. As a result, designers often rely on HALT testing and on handbooks such as Fides, Telecordia or Mil Handbook 217 to estimate the failure rate of their products, knowing full well that these approaches act as guidelines rather than as a reliable prediction tool.

Furthermore, with zero failure required for the “pass” criterion as well as the poor correlation of expensive HTOL data to test and field failures, there is no communication for the designers to utilize this knowledge in order to build in reliability or to trade it off with performance. Prediction is not really the goal of these tests; however, current practice is to assign an expected failure rate, FIT, based only on this test even if the presumed acceleration factor is not correct.

We expose, in this tutorial, the actual lies that are propagated today based on incorrect use of statistics by JEDEC and other standards organizations. We then demonstrate a simple way to achieve accurate predictive reliability assessment by way of “Failure In Time” (FIT). We will evaluate the goal of finding MTBF and evaluate the wisdom of various approaches to reliability prediction. Our goal is to predict reliability based on the system environment including space, military and commercial. It is our intent to show that the era of confidence in reliability prediction has arrived and that we can make reasonable reliability predictions from qualification testing at the system level. I will demonstrate how physics of failure models in conjunction with qualification testing through a Multiple Test Operational Life (MTOL) matrix solution makes cost-effective reliability predictions that are predictive and based on the system operating conditions. Furthermore, we will show experimental evidence that the thermal activation energy is non-constant over the operational temperatures as well as a non-constant voltage acceleration factor in standard devices.

In this seminar, you will learn:
Understanding of constant-rate failure prediction (MTBF and FIT)
Statistical inconsistencies and outright lies propagated by JEDEC
How accelerated tests can be designed for multiple mechanisms
How multiple-mechanism models can be linearly combined using FIT
How this linear combination can make realistic reliability prediction

About your instructor:
Professor Joseph Bernstein is an expert in several areas of nano-scale micro-electronic device reliability and physics of failure; including packaging, system reliability modeling, gate oxide integrity, radiation effects, Flash NAND and NOR memory, SRAM and DRAM, MEMS and laser programmable metal interconnect.  He has licensed his own technology and consulted for RFID and SRAM applications related to fuse and redundancy and for programmable gate arrays and system-on-chip. He directs the Laboratory for Failure Analysis and Reliability of Electronic Systems, teaches VLSI design courses and heads the VLSI program at Ariel University. His Laboratory is a center of research activity dedicated to serving the needs of manufacturers of highly reliable electronic systems using commercially available off the shelf parts. His latest project is to qualify COTS for satellite operation. His 2006 publication entitled, “Electronic Circuit Reliability Modeling,” Microelectronics Reliability has been referenced over 100 times. Since that time, his formulations have become integrated throughout much of the electronics industry. He lectures around the world, presenting his common-sense approach to reliability testing and reliability. He also closely works with both testing and reliability software companies.

Cost $200 per person, if you have five or more the cost is $180 per person
To purchase this webinar recording contact with the link above or call 303 655 3051