Advanced Experimental and Simulation Approaches to Meet Reliability Challenges of New Electronics Systems

This paper focuses on some advanced aspects of physics of failure approaches. Tracing of failure modes under realistic loading is a key issue to separate relevant failure sites to be studied in more detail. In the past design of experiment (DoE) tools have been developed to handle this problem. They allow to optimize design and/or material selection with respect to different failure mechanisms and sites. The application of these methods is demonstrated by optimizations performed for fracture problems. Interface fracture has been chosen as one of the most important failure mechanisms. Finally, local stress and strain measurement tools developed over the past years are presented at the end of the paper. They are tools to validate simulation results and therefore the underlying mechanical modeling. Namely, local stress measurement tools under development are needed to make realistic assumptions of loading conditions and to provide residual stress data for FEA. In order to meet reliability demands on modern electronics systems of increasing complexity, respective approaches have moved far away from isolated system/component testing or simple finite element analysis (FEA). A combination of advanced numerical and experimental methods has to be used for successful thermo‐mechanical evaluation. The paper focuses on some aspects of modern reliability assessment on physics of failure basis.