Cloud-Based Online Ageing Monitoring for IoT Devices

Reliability of an electronic device, concerning if it can function reliably over its designated lifetime in the field (such as 10 or 15 years), has become more and more important in today's safety-critical applications such as automotive electronics. Traditionally, the ageing has been performed in an offline setting where stress test has been applied to accelerate the ageing process and then a model is established to make the futuristic prediction. This kind of offline method has a drawback of not being able to take into account the factor of the unique operating condition and environment that a device could have experienced in the field. In this work, we present the first cloud-based ageing monitoring system to the best of our knowledge, for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. It has many advantages. First of all, one can know of the ageing status of an IoT device remotely and continuously. Secondly, through data analysis in a cloud server, more accurate prediction can be achieved. Thirdly, an ageing hazard can be alarmed in advance before it actually strikes, and thereby pre-caution actions (such as online repair, or even call-for-maintenance request) can be taken in advance to avoid unnecessary system fatal failure. A prototype system using test chips with built-in design-for-ageing-monitoring circuitry will be demonstrated with measurement data collected through a cloud server.