ELECTRONIC RELIABILITY ISSUES RELATIVE TO AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCT

The increased usage of electronics in automobiles, especially in critical engine control and safety related applications, makes electronic component reliability a major concern. As the automobile customer becomes more quality conscious, reliability becomes a more and more important sales factor. This paper addresses the needs for improved and predictable reliability for automotive electronics. Reliability enhancement will require improvements in packaging, testability, device design and fabrication processes. Electronic components will have to have reliability designed-in rather than “yielded-in.” There are also needs for improvement in predictions of reliability performance in the field and for alternatives to screening techniques to eliminate infant mortality. Improvement of automotive electronics reliability will require better communication and more joint efforts on the part of individual vehicle manufacturers and members of the electronics industry.