Time Distribution of Intermittents Versus Contact Resistance for Tin-Tin Connector Interfaces During Low Amplitude Motion

An experimental study was made of the relationship between he static contact resistance increase in a separable connector degraded by interfaee motion and short duration dynamic events which could represent intermittent failures in high-speed digital circuits. These studies were a continuation of earlier work which demonstrated the occurrence of short duration "opens" in the range 5-10 ns duration for increases in contact resistance of as little as 5-6 m \Omega . No time discrimination for these events was obtained. The current studies had the primary objective of resolving the duration of such events and to show the relationship between event duration and static contact resistance. It was shown that as contact resistance increases, the probability increases for the development of longer duration events. From pulse widths >20 ns at \delta R/R=5-6, durations increased to more than 1 \mu s at \delta R/R = 40-45. These results imply that, in practice, a range of failure criterion could be applied for test purposes depending upon sensitivity of the specific application towards tort duration open events.