Reliability Analysis for Multiple Dependent Failure Processes: An MEMS Application

Widespread acceptance of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) depends highly on their reliability, both for large-volume commercialization and for critical applications. The problem of multiple dependent failure processes is of particular interest to MEMS researchers. For MEMS devices subjected to both wear degradation and random shocks that are dependent and competing, we propose a new reliability model based on the combination of random-shock and degradation modeling. The models developed in this research can be applied directly or customized for most current and evolving MEMS designs with multiple dependent failure processes.