A toolkit for parametric drift modelling of electronic components

Parametric drift modelling describes the behaviour of components as they drift away from their nominal values. It permits the mean lifetime prediction of components which have known wear-out phenomena associated with them, e.g. mechanical parts, laser diodes etc. This form of modelling of wear-out allows the setting of optimal maintenance periods which, in turn, allows the greatest availability of the system. s becoming much more important now that reliability is moving toward a failure-free time or maintenance-free operating period paradigm. This paper describes seven models that can be used to predict the lifetime of components given some early life measurements, and gives an example of the application of one of the models.