Streamlining the Electronic Component Derating Process: An Electrical Engineering Perspective

Electronic component derating is widely-adopted in industry as a means to improve the reliability of printed circuit board assemblies by ensuring the maximum applied stresses for each electronic component does not exceed 50-90% of the supplier's rating. The process for performing derating analyses was largely unchanged at Rockwell Automation for the last twenty years. Recently, the derating process was reimaged from an electrical engineering point-of-view and a software tool was created to support the new process. The derating software interfaces with several internal and external databases and significantly automates the derating process. A benefit of the new process and software tool is a projected 50-75% reduction in the time is takes to perform the derating process relative to the old derating process. This paper describes the streamlined process, derating software tool, and implementation challenges to enable automation.