A stress-based reliability prediction of 5G system design

Reliability predictions early in the design process validate the architecture’s goals, identify critical components, and assess the impact of operating conditions on failure rates, guiding necessary maintenance renewals. Estimating reliability in increasingly complex PCB designs is challenging due to the mixed composition of digital, analog, RF, and mechanical components and a lack of simulation models for ICs and FPGAs. This complexity makes system-level exploration daunting and time-intensive, with the need to simulate numerous fault models quickly, stressing simulation capacity and performance at subsystem levels. This paper proposes a method to improve PCB reliability by dividing the design into simulatable sub-circuits to accurately assess absolute voltage, current, and power values and incorporating interconnect lifespan and electrical over stress(EOS) into the overall reliability assessment using reliability block diagram. This approach provides a comprehensive framework for enhancing PCB durability predictions.