Role of failure-mechanism identification in accelerated testing

The authors summarize common failure mechanisms in electronic devices and packages and investigate possible failure mechanism shifting during accelerated testing. It is noted that in accelerated tests the stress applied can produce failure mechanisms that are different from those observed during actual service conditions. Therefore, failure mechanism identification and the setting up of stress limits for all types of accelerated life tests in order to prevent shifting of the original dominant failure mechanism is necessary. Research on failure mechanism detection needs to be conducted to provide better approaches for failure mechanism identification. If failure mechanism shifting occurs in an accelerated life test, the test data will be unrepresentative for the reliability under actual operating conditions