4 ms·

2-3 years for a consumer device and 10 for a telecommunications device s em both massively too short by a factor of 2 or more. Do we really want our devices to

2-3 years for a consumer device and 10 for a telecommunications device s em both massively too short by a factor of 2 or more. Do we really want our devices to stop working physically, at the chip level, in less than a decade? Some people still play on game consoles decades old; these are most certainly consumer devices. I’d much rather we over-design stuff to last decades, at least at the chip level where overedesigning is super cheap. Solid state electronics was supposed to mean longer life for everything. No tubes to burn out, no mechanical parts to wear out. It would suck so bad if we nickel and dimed what should be fundamentally physically robust devices to last for much less time than complicated mechanical devices from the past.

nashashmi 5y ago
They don't stop working after 2_3 years. They just don't work as fast. The electronics industry wants to promote change of products. so they do this. Or they don't work on long term durability. My take: for as long as recycling performance is terrible, this should be a no no. Social movements should start demanding better products.
nickff 5y ago
>"Do we really want our devices to stop working physically, at the chip level, in less than a decade? Some people still play on game consoles decades old; these are most certainly consumer devices." Many components in your consumer devices age; my greatest concern is electrolytic capacitors (specifically the tantalum ones). I think many game consoles and computers with switched-mode power supplies are unlikely to last decades. If you want a simple way to get your devices to last longer, I suggest that you pick ones with external (brick) power supplies, as the SMPS is likely to be one major cause of failures. >"I’d much rather we over-design stuff to last decades, at least at the chip level where overedesigning is super cheap." I am not sure that people are willing to pay significantly more for these longer-lasting devices, and all that extra effort will be wasted if the devices are scrapped prematurely. It may be more (environmentally) efficient to simply replace the devices upon failure rather than over-designing them.
- ece 5y ago
  I've now had two phones that with mild and bad water damage, have had their cellular connections stop working, while WiFi and BT work just fine. Anecdotally, I'd like to say this might have something to do with the RFFE's analog components and that water proofing seems like a very worthwhile thing to aim for in handheld electronics. I suppose what I'm saying here isn't new, the environmental factors that a device is most likely to encounter is something people do account for. I bought a 50degC ambient PS because I didn't want to worry about heat, and a waterproof phone, and a better cooler for OC. I imagine such buying will continue to outweigh any concerns for 5nm chips not lasting long enough for some time still. Which is not to say that semi companies don't have challenges in front of them.
zozbot234 5y ago
Many of these effects are highly temperature- and voltage-dependent, so they're way more likely to show up in chips that are overvolted, overclocked and inadequately cooled. But we're yet to see overclocking enthusiasts run into these reliability concerns, so my best guess is that the safety factors embedded in current designs are enough to make them less of an issue.
- boznz 5y ago
  I'm an EE and never had a chip fail when working inside its recommended operating parameters and properly protected and I have devices in the field over 20 years, I do see failures when poor soldering or electrolytic gone bad compromises the power supply. My main worry is some flash memory is only guarenteed minimum 25 years, Not sure how they determined this but yet to see any issues. I would hate to be on a generational spaceship or the first settler on another planet with currently designed commercial stuff.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Flash is indeed a weak link. I use to put together embedded Linux systems out of commodity server components 15 years ago, and over the years we lost many flash chips (altho they would often continue functioning in a degraded state… read only) due to the high logging rate of Linux combined with the low write endurance of typical usb flash disks. You can get more expensive single level cell (or pseudo-single level cell) chips now that can last an extremely long time. Old Tesla Model Ses had this same problem with the infotainment system flash, but Tesla will fix it for you for free now since the infotainment system contains some features NHTSA considers safety essential (wipers, etc).
    - piyh 5y ago
      I'm only buying high endurance memory now. I've had enough cheap usb and sd cards die on me. Losing my data is not worth saving $10.
      - ece 5y ago
Syonyk 5y ago
> Do we really want our devices to stop working physically, at the chip level, in less than a decade? Unfortunately, "we" aren't really considered in the decisions. The math from a company's perspective is mostly, "Will this last the expected warranty period?" And, to a lesser extent, "Will the ill will caused by these catastrophically failing right outside warranty be a problem?" See RRoD and such. But the problem is that "solid state" does wear out - this article is a list of causes of it. It's reasonably true that the older solid state technologies lasted extremely long, but as you start to push them, they don't last as long, and even things like power transistors eventually start to fail - there are a few companies that rebuild old Tesla Roadster power conversion equipment, because the transistors wear out and fail (at least one of those companies seems to regularly burn down their shop as well). > It would suck so bad if we nickel and dimed what should be fundamentally physically robust devices to last for much less time than complicated mechanical devices from the past. For you, sure. For the people in business selling replacement, a widget that lasts 30 years is an annoying pain in the ass to them. GMC used to build transit buses (beautiful aluminum chassis, slanted windows, the works), and eventually stopped. Talking to the bus mechanics when I used to drive, their theory was that GMC couldn't sell new ones, because damned near every single one they'd made was still on the road. They didn't corrode, and a properly maintained chassis would last basically forever. In the early 2000s, we had 40 year old buses that were on their 4th engine, 3rd transmission, up near a million miles. They just kept trucking along. Now, it seems consumer stuff is lucky to last 5 years before needing major repairs.
userbinator 5y ago
Solid state electronics was supposed to mean longer life for everything. I remember the same being said about LEDs (and before that, CFLs) for lighting, that they would have a much longer life, but in practice, they didn't precisely because making something that lasts longer means less profit in the long term.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  They do seem to last longer, but there is a wide distribution in lifetimes. I get bad batches that last only months but some bulbs that last years or over a decade of use.
  - Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
    In my experience it’s down to the race to the bottom. Cheap power supplies, poor heat sinking, over driving the LEDs so they can use less of them but keep the same lumens. People don’t seem to mind too much when replacements cost a couple of bucks. Better quality bulbs tend to last much longer, personally I’m waiting for the “Dubai Lamps” to become available here and I’ll prob slowly switch over to those (shame they are not dimmable). Although I have to admit the supermarket own brand LED bulbs that I currently have in use have put up a much better fight then I initially gave them credit for. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-lights-you-cant-buy/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li... https://www.mea.lighting.philips.com/consumer/dubai-lamp https://www.mea.lighting.philips.com/consumer/dubai-lamp
    - fomine3 5y ago
      In my experience, LEDs itself are rarely dead but other components tend to be dead
    - userbinator 5y ago
      Some previous discussion on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793 It's interesting that the Dubai Lamps only use a relatively simple capacitive dropper with a linear post-regulator --- so it's probably actually cheaper to produce than some of the other LED bulbs with complex switchmode power supplies. The cheapest LED bulbs use a capacitive dropper too, but they drive the LEDs very hard; bigclivedotcom (same person who did the video featured in hackaday there) has a few other videos showing how they can be modified for lower power consumption and thus correspondingly long life.
jgeada 5y ago
Note that this is the minimum lifetime. Semiconductor aging is a statistical process, some devices will happily last much longer, but there is a design minimum lifetime that has to be accounted for and met. Also, the aging calculations are done under worst possible conditions, ie the computation is for 2years active life for a consumer device, at highest operating voltage, highest operating frequency and highest operating temperature. The time while it is powered down or sleeping isn't aging the device and so doesn't impact lifetime. The actual working life in your hands under regular usage will be (much) longer. There is a reason your average phone works fine for 5+ years from hardware perspective, even if the software side sometimes has shorter planned obsolescence (lack of updates, or updates that demand more from the device than that generation of chip was capable of delivering, etc) For telecommunications, or automotive usage, and in particular for anything that might be failure critical, the testing and metrics are much more onerous, and the minimum guaranteed lifetimes higher. This partly explains why such devices, even when manufactured at advanced nodes, don't exhibit the same performance as consumer devices: some of the performance is being held in reserve to account for the natural degradation due to aging. Source: I'm one of the people quoted in the original article.
ya_throw 5y ago
>Solid state electronics was supposed to mean longer life for everything. Sorry to be cynical, but says who? The marketing department? Product lifecycle is a function of engineering design, and not necessarily material choice. A Detroit Diesel engine will run basically forever, yet I would be surprised if many of the newest electronic "no moving parts" widgets will last more than a few years. If fewer moving parts is inherently more reliable, then ask an EV owner why charging points are so frequently broken. After all, they only have one moving part! The last few days before the Anti Singularity will be terrible. We will be desperately trying to complete the next generation of engineering designs, while our current systems crumble and age before our very eyes.
qsmi 5y ago
> I’d much rather we over-design stuff to last decades, at least at the chip level where overedesigning is super cheap. Engineers are working on it. From a follow on article by the same author. "An emerging alternative is to build aging sensors into the chip. “There are sensors, which usually contain a timing loop, and they will warn you when it takes longer for the electrons to go around a loop,” says Arteris IP’s Shuler. “There is also a concept called canary cells, where these are meant to die prematurely compared to a standard transistor. This can tell you that aging is impacting the chip. What you are trying to do is to get predictive information that the chip is going to die. In some cases, they are taking the information from those sensors, getting that off chip, throwing it into big database and running AI algorithms to try to do predictive work.” https://semiengineering.com/aging-problems-at-5nm-and-below/ https://semiengineering.com/aging-problems-at-5nm-and-below/

nashashmi 5y ago

They don't stop working after 2_3 years. They just don't work as fast. The electronics industry wants to promote change of products. so they do this. Or they don't work on long term durability. My take: for as long as recycling performance is terrible, this should be a no no. Social movements should start demanding better products.

nickff 5y ago

>"Do we really want our devices to stop working physically, at the chip level, in less than a decade? Some people still play on game consoles decades old; these are most certainly consumer devices." Many components in your consumer devices age; my greatest concern is electrolytic capacitors (specifically the tantalum ones). I think many game consoles and computers with switched-mode power supplies are unlikely to last decades. If you want a simple way to get your devices to last longer, I suggest that you pick ones with external (brick) power supplies, as the SMPS is likely to be one major cause of failures. >"I’d much rather we over-design stuff to last decades, at least at the chip level where overedesigning is super cheap." I am not sure that people are willing to pay significantly more for these longer-lasting devices, and all that extra effort will be wasted if the devices are scrapped prematurely. It may be more (environmentally) efficient to simply replace the devices upon failure rather than over-designing them.

ece 5y ago
I've now had two phones that with mild and bad water damage, have had their cellular connections stop working, while WiFi and BT work just fine. Anecdotally, I'd like to say this might have something to do with the RFFE's analog components and that water proofing seems like a very worthwhile thing to aim for in handheld electronics. I suppose what I'm saying here isn't new, the environmental factors that a device is most likely to encounter is something people do account for. I bought a 50degC ambient PS because I didn't want to worry about heat, and a waterproof phone, and a better cooler for OC. I imagine such buying will continue to outweigh any concerns for 5nm chips not lasting long enough for some time still. Which is not to say that semi companies don't have challenges in front of them.

zozbot234 5y ago

Many of these effects are highly temperature- and voltage-dependent, so they're way more likely to show up in chips that are overvolted, overclocked and inadequately cooled. But we're yet to see overclocking enthusiasts run into these reliability concerns, so my best guess is that the safety factors embedded in current designs are enough to make them less of an issue.

boznz 5y ago
I'm an EE and never had a chip fail when working inside its recommended operating parameters and properly protected and I have devices in the field over 20 years, I do see failures when poor soldering or electrolytic gone bad compromises the power supply. My main worry is some flash memory is only guarenteed minimum 25 years, Not sure how they determined this but yet to see any issues. I would hate to be on a generational spaceship or the first settler on another planet with currently designed commercial stuff.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Flash is indeed a weak link. I use to put together embedded Linux systems out of commodity server components 15 years ago, and over the years we lost many flash chips (altho they would often continue functioning in a degraded state… read only) due to the high logging rate of Linux combined with the low write endurance of typical usb flash disks. You can get more expensive single level cell (or pseudo-single level cell) chips now that can last an extremely long time. Old Tesla Model Ses had this same problem with the infotainment system flash, but Tesla will fix it for you for free now since the infotainment system contains some features NHTSA considers safety essential (wipers, etc).
  - piyh 5y ago
    I'm only buying high endurance memory now. I've had enough cheap usb and sd cards die on me. Losing my data is not worth saving $10.
    - ece 5y ago

Syonyk 5y ago

> Do we really want our devices to stop working physically, at the chip level, in less than a decade? Unfortunately, "we" aren't really considered in the decisions. The math from a company's perspective is mostly, "Will this last the expected warranty period?" And, to a lesser extent, "Will the ill will caused by these catastrophically failing right outside warranty be a problem?" See RRoD and such. But the problem is that "solid state" does wear out - this article is a list of causes of it. It's reasonably true that the older solid state technologies lasted extremely long, but as you start to push them, they don't last as long, and even things like power transistors eventually start to fail - there are a few companies that rebuild old Tesla Roadster power conversion equipment, because the transistors wear out and fail (at least one of those companies seems to regularly burn down their shop as well). > It would suck so bad if we nickel and dimed what should be fundamentally physically robust devices to last for much less time than complicated mechanical devices from the past. For you, sure. For the people in business selling replacement, a widget that lasts 30 years is an annoying pain in the ass to them. GMC used to build transit buses (beautiful aluminum chassis, slanted windows, the works), and eventually stopped. Talking to the bus mechanics when I used to drive, their theory was that GMC couldn't sell new ones, because damned near every single one they'd made was still on the road. They didn't corrode, and a properly maintained chassis would last basically forever. In the early 2000s, we had 40 year old buses that were on their 4th engine, 3rd transmission, up near a million miles. They just kept trucking along. Now, it seems consumer stuff is lucky to last 5 years before needing major repairs.

userbinator 5y ago

Solid state electronics was supposed to mean longer life for everything. I remember the same being said about LEDs (and before that, CFLs) for lighting, that they would have a much longer life, but in practice, they didn't precisely because making something that lasts longer means less profit in the long term.

Robotbeat 5y ago
They do seem to last longer, but there is a wide distribution in lifetimes. I get bad batches that last only months but some bulbs that last years or over a decade of use.
- Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
  In my experience it’s down to the race to the bottom. Cheap power supplies, poor heat sinking, over driving the LEDs so they can use less of them but keep the same lumens. People don’t seem to mind too much when replacements cost a couple of bucks. Better quality bulbs tend to last much longer, personally I’m waiting for the “Dubai Lamps” to become available here and I’ll prob slowly switch over to those (shame they are not dimmable). Although I have to admit the supermarket own brand LED bulbs that I currently have in use have put up a much better fight then I initially gave them credit for. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-lights-you-cant-buy/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li... https://www.mea.lighting.philips.com/consumer/dubai-lamp https://www.mea.lighting.philips.com/consumer/dubai-lamp
  - fomine3 5y ago
    In my experience, LEDs itself are rarely dead but other components tend to be dead
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Some previous discussion on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793 It's interesting that the Dubai Lamps only use a relatively simple capacitive dropper with a linear post-regulator --- so it's probably actually cheaper to produce than some of the other LED bulbs with complex switchmode power supplies. The cheapest LED bulbs use a capacitive dropper too, but they drive the LEDs very hard; bigclivedotcom (same person who did the video featured in hackaday there) has a few other videos showing how they can be modified for lower power consumption and thus correspondingly long life.

jgeada 5y ago

Note that this is the minimum lifetime. Semiconductor aging is a statistical process, some devices will happily last much longer, but there is a design minimum lifetime that has to be accounted for and met. Also, the aging calculations are done under worst possible conditions, ie the computation is for 2years active life for a consumer device, at highest operating voltage, highest operating frequency and highest operating temperature. The time while it is powered down or sleeping isn't aging the device and so doesn't impact lifetime. The actual working life in your hands under regular usage will be (much) longer. There is a reason your average phone works fine for 5+ years from hardware perspective, even if the software side sometimes has shorter planned obsolescence (lack of updates, or updates that demand more from the device than that generation of chip was capable of delivering, etc) For telecommunications, or automotive usage, and in particular for anything that might be failure critical, the testing and metrics are much more onerous, and the minimum guaranteed lifetimes higher. This partly explains why such devices, even when manufactured at advanced nodes, don't exhibit the same performance as consumer devices: some of the performance is being held in reserve to account for the natural degradation due to aging. Source: I'm one of the people quoted in the original article.

ya_throw 5y ago

>Solid state electronics was supposed to mean longer life for everything. Sorry to be cynical, but says who? The marketing department? Product lifecycle is a function of engineering design, and not necessarily material choice. A Detroit Diesel engine will run basically forever, yet I would be surprised if many of the newest electronic "no moving parts" widgets will last more than a few years. If fewer moving parts is inherently more reliable, then ask an EV owner why charging points are so frequently broken. After all, they only have one moving part! The last few days before the Anti Singularity will be terrible. We will be desperately trying to complete the next generation of engineering designs, while our current systems crumble and age before our very eyes.

qsmi 5y ago

> I’d much rather we over-design stuff to last decades, at least at the chip level where overedesigning is super cheap. Engineers are working on it. From a follow on article by the same author. "An emerging alternative is to build aging sensors into the chip. “There are sensors, which usually contain a timing loop, and they will warn you when it takes longer for the electrons to go around a loop,” says Arteris IP’s Shuler. “There is also a concept called canary cells, where these are meant to die prematurely compared to a standard transistor. This can tell you that aging is impacting the chip. What you are trying to do is to get predictive information that the chip is going to die. In some cases, they are taking the information from those sensors, getting that off chip, throwing it into big database and running AI algorithms to try to do predictive work.” https://semiengineering.com/aging-problems-at-5nm-and-below/ https://semiengineering.com/aging-problems-at-5nm-and-below/