Product Reliability Testing
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes dependability in the lifecycle management of a product. Dependability, or reliability, describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time
Reliability can be defined as the ability of a device to conform to its electrical and visual/mechanical specifications over a specified period of time under specified conditions at a specified confidence level. Reliability engineering employs a wide variety of reliability tests to achieve continuous reliability improvement throughout the entire life cycle of the semiconductor device – from design, to manufacturing, to its usage, and until after its failure.
The objectives of reliability engineering, in decreasing order of priority, are:
- To apply engineering knowledge and specialist techniques to prevent or to reduce the likelihood or frequency of failures.
- To identify and correct the causes of failures that does occur despite the efforts to prevent them.
- To determine ways of coping with failures that does occur, if their causes have not been corrected.
- To apply methods for estimating the likely reliability of new designs, and for analysing reliability data.