Effects of different temperature cycling test profiles on the reliability of UHF RFID tags

Temperature cycling tests are widely used to study reliability in environments with fluctuating temperatures. These tests serve to locate failure mechanisms and places significantly faster than testing in a product's operating environment. When a test procedure is chosen, test times need to be as short as possible. However, to ensure reliable results, the test must not be accelerated excessively because the failure mechanisms must replicate the same as those occurring in the real operating environment. Selection of extreme temperatures, dwell times and temperature change rates may have a significant impact on test times. In this study a passive ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag was tested in four different temperature cycling tests. The tests were chosen so that the effects of temperature range, dwell times and temperature change rates could be investigated. The failure mechanisms in the tests were the same and the results between tests could be compared. Wider temperature range and faster temperature change rate accelerated the failures significantly. However, no differences in failure times due to changed dwell time were observed in most of the test samples.