Reliability of Electronic Drivers: An Industrial Approach

Reliability of electronic drivers, or systems, is crucial for the business of Signify. We manufacture and sell more than a million drivers per year. Field returns taught us what failure modes are important, but this is not sufficient to provide lifetime claims for our products. Being in this business for almost a century, in order to provide detailed lifetime claims, we have established an internal reliability tool. This tool provides our designers the correct information for flawless driver development. The specially developed Electronics Reliability Tool (ERT) uses on the one hand FIT tables provided by handbooks like e.g., Telcordia and on the other hand also considers wear-out mechanisms due to e.g., lightning strikes. Validation and verification of our predictions is performed by collecting sold quantities, field returns, do extensive failure analysis and compare these values with calculated ones. Each internally designed driver is subjected to an ERT calculation. The forecasted lifetime is used as a yard stick to witness the drivers’ targeted lifetime. In our presentation we will demonstrate the tool. In this paper, we describe details of how ERT calculates failure rates. We will also present the comparison between field performance and calculated values of our electronic drivers.

Estimation of Residual Lifetime of Electrolytic Capacitor using Analytical Techniques

In the fast-evolving era of digital electronics, reliability has become a critical issue. Due to failure and faults, the component manufacturers face market reputation degradation as well as financial set back. The condition monitoring for power electronics are based on basic principles; however, by analyzing failure modes of semiconductor devices and exploring appropriate techniques, situation has been improved a lot. From toy to satellite, an electrolytic capacitor is mostly used as an important component. This paper enlightens the estimation of residual lifetime of electrolytic capacitor using analytical techniques, so that these components can be reused and problem of WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment) can be reduced to a large extent. The residual life of electrolytic capacitor is calculated using various analytical and mathematical technique. Accuracy of empirical standard prediction methods such as military handbook MILHDBK and RIAC217 is compared for the residual life prediction of electrolytic capacitor. RIAC217 plus technique proves to be more accurate than MILHDBK or other standard techniques. By predicting the residual life, the capability of re-use the component increases and problem of e-waste is decreased to a great extent. Thus, the residual lifetime prediction is a critical parameter for successful operation of device as well as safe healthy environment

The Influence of the Magnetic Field on DC and the Impulse Breakdown of Noble Gases

Increased electromagnetic contamination of the environment accompanied with the amplified miniaturization of electronic components underline the issue of the reliable operation of electronics. Reliability is of utmost importance in special applications such as medical instruments, nuclear installations, fusion experiments, etc., where larger magnetic fields occur during operation. Therefore, the interest for insulation components that consistently protect instrumentation from overvoltage is growing. This paper deals with the effects important for the stability of a gas surge arrester, the most commonly used low-voltage component for the overvoltage protection. The effect of the magnetic field on DC and the impulse breakdown of noble gases is investigated. For the theoretical interpretation of the obtained results, the spectrum of free electron gas was determined, which enabled the evaluation of a new expression for the first Townsend coefficient. The results obtained in that way were verified through comparison with theoretically calculated results. Experiments were carried out under well-controlled laboratory conditions.