Concept for a simulation-based reliability assessment at the system level of printed circuit boards

This paper presents a novel concept for the simulation-based assessment of system-level failure modes of printed circuit boards. Component level failure probability simulation is combined with probabilistic failure mode and effects analysis to provide additional information about system-level failure consequences. To account for ignorance of exact parameter values during the design process and inherent parameter variations, uncertainties are incorporated into the calculations and propagated to the system level failure probabilities. The workflow of the proposed reliability assessment concept is applied to an example printed circuit board.