Connecting parametric aging to catastrophic failure through thermodynamics

There have been numerous studies with Arrhenius theory in reliability. However, very few actually apply to parametric reliability analysis. This paper provides fundamental details in this area of reliability physics. The authors derive a thermally activated time-dependent model for both parametric and catastrophic Arrhenius aging. It is shown how aging dynamics depend upon thermodynamics specific to device reliability physics and how catastrophic phenomena can be correlated to device life dynamics