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The article focuses on defects in ICs, but automotive testing of things like assembled PCBs is interesting to me. I work in aerospace and at least everything I'
by johnwalkr 4y ago
The article focuses on defects in ICs, but automotive testing of things like assembled PCBs is interesting to me. I work in aerospace and at least everything I've worked on is designed to environmental requirements and then tested to those requirements plus a margin. This doesn't work if you want to make a million cars that stay on the road safely for 10-20 years. You can't exactly test a statistically significant number of boards for long enough to know much about failures after 10 years, or how many parts will fail during the warrantee period. So they do highly accelerated life testing with vibration, humidity, hot and cold temperature cycling, at the same time during development. Failure modes are discovered and fixed as much as possible in the available time until the product is released (and presumably delayed if a major issue is seen).
- targafarian 4y agoMy understanding is that accelerated reliability / lifetime testing is often not terribly representative of actual performance (sometimes failures are underestimated, sometimes overestimated; in either case, the mechanisms for failure can simply be different from those that are emphasized during the testing).
- hulitu 4y agoIt is representative if you do it correctly. But testing is expensive. And the development time is short. Etc.
- frxx 4y agoUsually, car parts have an expected life time of 15 years. Testing is done as you mentioned above, and after the product is in the field, some things will be fixed still. Also, experiences from previous products are taken into consideration.
- froh 4y agoECU manufacturers like Continental do accelerated climate chamber testing. The PCB has to work from -40°C to +80°C, Alaska to Dubai so to speak. That and vibration resistance are the main reasons why common over the shelf components can't "just be used in the car".