A novel accelerated life-test method under thermal cyclic loadings for electronic devices considering multiple failure mechanisms

Abstract A novel accelerated test method has been developed and applied to estimate the functional lifetime of system-level electronic devices that bear more than one potential failure mechanisms. Thermal cyclic loadings with temperature extremum and cyclic impact stress are designed to stimulate multiple failures simultaneously. Firstly, improvements are made analytically in the lifetime distribution of the product, underlying life-stress relationship, and the temperature dependence of basic acceleration model. Afterward, a comparison of the acceleration model between the proposed and traditional method is conducted by simulation, the results indicate that the proposed model has an advantage in reflecting the failure mechanisms which are sensitive to the low-temperature condition. Finally, real accelerated tests are employed on the custom-circuit samples and the data analysis shows that our method can effectively stimulate multiple failure mechanisms of electronic device while ensuring the accuracy of the reliability and lifetime assessment.