Maybe the fact that we design them with computers and modern quality makes the die quicker. Suppose you design a device, and you want to give a 2 year warranty

Maybe the fact that we design them with computers and modern quality makes the die quicker. Suppose you design a device, and you want to give a 2 year warranty. Every device brought in before this eats in your profit. So you design with a safety margin, using components that on average last 3 years. Now you design them with a computer. You can simulate the heat profile of the whole thing, move some troublemaker components around, where a pen-and-paper designer would need to guestimate. So you can produce a cheaper device by lowering the safety margin to 2.4 years.