A Modelling Framework for the Reliability of Safety Critical Electronics

With the application of a methodical modelling architecture, analysis of the effects of both design and manufacturing processes on life cycle expectancy and manufacturing yields can provide a platform for systems level reliability, enabling the prediction of product failure. However, the calculation reliability has been historically centred on physics-of-failure approaches (i.e. at the ´component level´) that cannot address growing system complexity, component miniaturisation and the coupling of cause and effects throughout the manufacturing value chain. In part to understand the effects of this shift to ´system-level´ failure causes (e.g. design, manufacturing processes, software), the usability of an integrated modelling framework to methodically understand and characterise both the design and manufacturing operations is being assessed in this study. Application of this modelling framework will enable the simulation, evaluation and prediction of product reliability, including system-level effects.