612 World Abstracts on Microelectronics and Reliability
After describing the very severe reliability requirements of
such systems, this paper recalls the unit selection method for
discrete components, taking the transistor as an example.
The bases of this method are the selection of homogeneous
manufacturing batches, and the monitoring of those
characteristics called the "reliability parameters".
The more complicated the integrated circuit, the more
difficult is it to apply this method to its constituent elements,
the less it is efficient, and the greater is the number of rejects.
Some simple examples, in taking transistors for reference, are
given to illustrate this point.
Several basic ideas are proposed in order to determine a
selection method compatible with the reliability require-
ments. It will be necessary to specify the methods of each
technology and for each particular integrated circuit, and, in
any case, to limit their complexity.
The explosion of resin moulded power integrated circuits and
the corresponding countermeasures. MASAAKIISAGAWA,Yuzl
IWASAKIand TAMOTSUSUTOH. Microelectron. Reliab. 20, 625
(1980). Product Liability (PL) is one of the most serious
problems at the present time, but the interest in it is mainly
concerned with systems. The authors point out in this paper
that one of PL problems is in the parts, namely, the explosion
of resin moulded power integrated circuits. There are a few
chances of explosion during the test of the units or sets into
which they are assembled, due to misoperations such as
shorting between the adjacent pins. At that time, a bonding
wire or IC chip is overheated due to abnormally high current
or power, then the resin fragment just above it is blown off
into the air, sometimes burning. This situation is very
dangerous and considered to have a possibility of someone
becoming blinded.
We clarified the explosion mechanism and present some
countermeasures to prevent the explosion accident, i.e. some
methods of explosion free devices and techniques preventing
such accidents.
Learning processes and growth curves in the field of integrated
circuits. W. HILDBERG. Microelectron. Reliab. 20, 337 (1980).
A model based on elementary probability theory is intro-
duced which describes the accumulation of the knowledge
and ability of many men, working on the improvement of a
complex product such as an integrated circuit. The relative
mastering of a given work frame necessary for the production
of failure free circuits is considered to be equivalent to the
process yield. Then by simple assumptions on the mean work
behaviour of individuals the well known practical learning
curves of yield result. Several relations are derived for a
3. C I R C U I T AND SYSTEMS RELIABILITY,
Signature analysis for board testing. JOHN R. HUMPHI~Y and
KAMRAN FIROOZ. The Radio and Electronic Engineer. 51 (1),
37 (January 1981). A signature analyser detects and displays
the unique digital signatures associated with the data nodes
in a circuit under test. By comparing these actual signatures
with the correct ones, faulty nodes can be detected. The
technical details of a practical signature analyser for use in
production are presented and its application to the testing of
complex printed circuit boards incorporating l.s.i, devices,
such as memories and microprocessors, is described.
La maintenance du Iogiciel. Un essai de modelisation. E.
GIP,ARD. Revue Technique Thomson--CSF, 12 (4), 913
(December 1980). (In French). This paper studies the
maintenance's burden for a software manufacturer. Two
models are used according as the manpower is constant or
regularly growing from year to year.
Stress-strength reliability models. BALBIR S. DHILLON.
Microelectron. Reliab. 20, 513 (1980). This paper presents
regular repetition of learning curves, which exist when the
progress occurs in steps. Finally the growth of the complexity
(number of elements per IC) is discussed, when we are
approaching physical limits.
Temperature acceleration of CMOS IC operating life.
MASAAKI ISAGAWA, HIDEO ONIYAMA and HIDEO AZEGAML
Microelectron. Reliab. 20, 329 (1980). We carried out the
high temperature operating life test (HTOT) of CMOS ICs
which include n-channel ROMs which were contaminated
deliberately by leaving naked for a long time in the room
ambient before moulding and got the bimodal failure
distributions consisting ofm = 0.3-0.5 and m = 2.6-3.3 parts
in the Weibull chart.
At the same time, the activation energy of 1.14eV was
obtained for m = 2.6-3.3 parts. In order to make clear the
failure mechanism of the latter part, we made the test devices
for detecting channel leakage current (abbrev. TEG) and
checked the shift of leakage current and life acceleration due
to temperature in HTOT. Then we found that leakage
currents of TEGs have an incubation time, their activation
energy was nearly equal to that of the CMOS ICs above and
m = 2.6-3.3 for CMOS ICs were reasonably explained due to
the gradient ct of the logarithm of the median leakage current
to that of time.
Also we got a 40 times longer life for the same CMOS ICs
coated with SiaN 4 film instead of SiO 2. And finally, from
these data, we could verify the cause of failure in CMOS ICs.
Salderability degradation of tin coated copper leads--solder-
ability measurement by meniscograph. M. CLEMENT and M.
BILLOT. Proc. CNET Cot!ference on Reliability and Maintain-
ability, Tregastel, France, p. 523 (8-12 September 1980). (In
French). Electronic components used in space programs are
more and more numerous so their solderability becomes an
essential parameter of the equipments quality. Difficulties
were recently met during soldering operations which under-
lined this problem.
As a result, an investigation was undertaken by CNES and
EMD into these solderability problems, which included the
following items:
--solderability degradation problems of tinned copper
component leads.
--methods of solderability test.
--definition of tin coated copper wire for use in space
applications.
The main results issuing from this investigation are re-
ported in this paper.
MAINTENANCE AND REDUNDANCY
newly developed reliability expressions for four interference
theory models of an identical unit parallel system. Last
model considers a parallel system whose redundant units
have two mutually exclusive failure modes. Models are
developed for the following cases:
(a) when system stress and unit strength are exponentially
distributed;
(b) both stress and strength follows Maxwellian and
exponential distributions, respectively;
(c) when both system stress and unit strength follow
power series hazard rate distribution;
(d) finally, when system stress and unit failure modes
strength are exponentially distributed.
Parametric methods in the analysis of survival data. ALAN J.
GROSS. Microelectron. Reliab, 20, 477 (1980). Parametric
methods have been used extensively to analyze survival data.
The parametric distribution that has been most widely used
in fitting survival data is the exponential. However, the