Degradation based long-term reliability assessment for electronic components in submarine applications

Submarine Communication Systems require usage of high-rel components to guarantee long term reliability. A standard reliability assessment, based on observed failures during test, may be achieved only employing a very large number of component-hour, which is often unaffordable. An alternative reliability technique is proposed in this paper, based on the degradation monitoring of the components most relevant electrical parameters, subjected to different test flows. This analysis leads to a quantitative estimate of the components failure rate. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.