Electronic component reliability determination system and method
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- one or more processors; and
a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;
identify an inputted reference failure rate for a monitored device, the inputted reference failure rate being a first quotient of an amount of failures associated with a population of the monitored device and an amount of time, the inputted reference failure rate associated with an expected operating temperature for the monitored device and an expected communication capacity utilization for the device;
communicate with the monitored device while the monitored device is in field operation for determining an actual operating temperature for the monitored device and an actual communication capacity utilization;
determine a temperature stress adjustment factor using the expected operating temperature and the actual operating temperature;
determine an electrical stress adjustment factor using the expected communication capacity utilization and the actual communication capacity utilization, wherein the processors are further operable to determine the electrical stress adjustment factor by calculating a difference of the expected communication capacity utilization and the actual communication capacity utilization; and
output an instantaneous failure rate that is a first mathematical product of the inputted reference failure rate, the temperature stress adjustment factor and the electrical stress adjustment factor.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention systems and methods facilitate automated efficient and effective electronic component and system failure prediction and reliability determination. A present invention electronic component reliability determination system and method includes adjustments for actual operating and environmental conditions and stress impacts on failure analysis. A reference failure rate is adjusted based upon monitored operational and environmental conditions to compensate for impacts associated with the monitored conditions. The conditions are monitored at predetermined intervals and an adjusted determination of an “instantaneous” failure rate is made. The instantaneous failure rate is utilized to ascertain a reliability index value. An electronic component reliability determination system and method can also account for infant mortality and aging effects in the determination of the reliability index value. In addition, reliability index values for both a component and a system in which the component is included can be ascertained.
32 Citations
31 Claims
-
1. An apparatus comprising:
-
one or more processors; and a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to; identify an inputted reference failure rate for a monitored device, the inputted reference failure rate being a first quotient of an amount of failures associated with a population of the monitored device and an amount of time, the inputted reference failure rate associated with an expected operating temperature for the monitored device and an expected communication capacity utilization for the device; communicate with the monitored device while the monitored device is in field operation for determining an actual operating temperature for the monitored device and an actual communication capacity utilization; determine a temperature stress adjustment factor using the expected operating temperature and the actual operating temperature; determine an electrical stress adjustment factor using the expected communication capacity utilization and the actual communication capacity utilization, wherein the processors are further operable to determine the electrical stress adjustment factor by calculating a difference of the expected communication capacity utilization and the actual communication capacity utilization; and output an instantaneous failure rate that is a first mathematical product of the inputted reference failure rate, the temperature stress adjustment factor and the electrical stress adjustment factor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
-
-
15. A system comprising:
-
means for inputting a first predetermined Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) for a monitored device, the first predetermined MTBF based on expected environmental conditions and expected usage parameters for the device; means for measuring actual temperature while the device is being operated in the field; means for identifying actual electrical stress on the monitored device by comparing the actual communication capacity utilization to an expected communication capacity utilization; means for determining a second field-adjusted MTBF for the monitored device, the second field-adjusted MTBF determined by adjusting the first predetermined MTBF according to both a first factor representing a difference between the field-measured actual temperature and an expected operating temperature and a second factor representing a difference between the identified electrical stress and expected electrical stress for the device, the second field-adjusted MTBF being different than the first predetermined MTBF; and means for outputting the second field-adjusted MTBF. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
-
-
23. A computer readable medium with instructions embedded therein for causing a processor to implement a reliability determination process including:
-
an initialization module for directing implementation of an initialization process; a determination process and a field condition reliability analysis process for determining one or more operational parameters of a component, the operational parameters determined at least in part by calculating an electrical stress adjustment factor that represents a difference between an expected communication capacity utilization for the component and an actual communication capacity utilization that is based on an output of a traffic byte counter corresponding to the component; a reliability determination runtime module for interfacing with an operating system to calculate one or more field-adjusted Mean Time Between Failures (MTBFs) by adjusting a reference MTBF for the component using the operational parameters and to calculate one or more cumulative reliability index values based on the field-adjusted MTBFs; and an output module for causing the calculated cumulative reliability index values to be displayed to a user. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26)
-
-
27. A method comprising:
-
identifying a reference failure rate for a device, the reference failure rate usable for calculating a time between failures statistic associated with the device and based on expected operating parameters for the device; measuring actual operating parameters for the device while the device is operated for non-testing purposes in a field environment for the device, the actual operating parameters including a measured actual communication capacity utilization for the device; determining an electrical stress adjustment factor according to a comparison of the actual communication capacity utilization to an expected communication capacity utilization for the device; determining a custom failure rate by adjusting the reference failure rate based at least in part on the determined electrical stress adjustment factor; outputting a signal for displaying the custom failure rate; and outputting a field-adjusted Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) for the device that is determined by adjusting a predetermined MTBF for the device using the actual operating parameters that are measured while the device is operated for the non-testing purposes in the field environment. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31)
-
Specification