Characterizing the Commercial Avionics Thermal Environment for Field Reliability Assessment

Defining environmental loading is often the most uncertain part of the electronics reliability calculation. This paper demonstrates a practical methodology to measure and characterize the dynamic thermal history of the commercial airplane environment. To reduce irregular field thermal cycles, an algorithm is presented that preserves key information necessary for viscoplastic solder fatigue analysis. As an example. the IPC solder model will be used to evaluate 20 termination leadless ceramic chip carriers on nonconstrained printed wiring boards. This methodology will enable more realistic thermal fatigue reliability assessments and acceleration test specifications.