A method for the rapid evaluation of semiconductor device reliability

This paper describes a method for the evaluation of semiconductor device reliability in very short times by progressively increasing the stress level of the test until all the devices have failed. This technique enables an approximate evaluation to be obtained in a time of one week with about fifty devices. The technique may be utilized to predict the long term, operating, reliability of devices by the development of an acceleration curve of failure as a function of the stresses used. This acceleration curve has been found to have the form where , t, a and b are, respectively, the stress for 50% failure, the time, and two constants characteristic of the device. For the particular case of temperature as stress, the relationship is, where is the temperature for 50% failure and E is an activation energy.