Methodology for physics and engineering of reliable products

Physics of failure approaches have gained widespread acceptance by most within the Electronic Reliability Community. These methodologies involve identifying root cause failure mechanisms, developing associated models, and utilizing these models to improve time to market, lower development and build costs and higher reliability. The methodology outlined herein sets forth a process, based on integration of both physics and engineering principles, for achieving the same goals. The proposed methodology is consistent with a "pure" physics of failure methodology, but it has the distinct advantage of not being "dead-in-the-water" if failure physics models do not exist. It also goes a long way to overcoming the age old axiom that "typically the things that fail are not the things that were analyzed, evaluated, etc. but rather the things that were assumed not to be a problem". It outlines a methodology for integrating all available data, at various data quality levels, to make the best possible decisions. The key components are: (1) existing physics and engineering models, (2) utilizing a problem/failure reporting system and other data sources to identify "tall poles" and their root cause for current designs and process and (3) new technology evaluations based on failure physics assessments.