Reliability qualification of semiconductor devices based on physics‐of‐failure and risk and opportunity assessment

Qualification frequently is a time-critical activity at the end of a development project. As time-to-market is a competitive issue, the most efficient qualification efforts are of interest. A concept is outlined, which proactively integrates qualification into the development process and provides a systematic procedure as a support tool to development and gives early focus on required activities. It converts requirements for a product into measures of development and qualification in combination with a risk and opportunity assessment step and accompanies the development process as a guiding and recording tool for advanced quality planning and confirmation. The collected data enlarge the knowledge database for DFR/BIR (designing for reliability/building-in reliability) to be used for future projects. The procedure challenges and promotes teamwork of all the disciplines involved. Based on the physics-of-failure concept the reliability qualification methodology is re-arranged with regard to the relationships between design, technology, manufacturing and the different product life phases at use conditions. It makes use of the physics-of-failure concept by considering the potential individual failure mechanisms and relates most of the reliability aspects to the technology rather than to the individual product design. Evaluation of complex products using common reliability models and the definition of sample sizes with respect to systematic inherent product properties and fractions of defects are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.