18.3: Klystron lifetime and reliability analysis: Five year update

Repair histories for over 1,000 klystrons of four fundamentally different design types and applications continue to be monitored. Statistical analysis of the failure data accumulated over nearly twenty years indicate mean time between failure values at the 90% confidence level ranging from 17 to 39 field service years for these devices. Comparison to the previous values indicates that the product lifetimes continue to improve.