Interconnection reliability studies of some ceramic components and the introduction of the results into MTBF calculations

In this paper, the reliability aspects of three ceramic components using leadless type 2nd level interconnection method are analyzed. The components discussed are made of standard alumina, HTCC, and LTCC materials. First, the thermal cycle tests are run to test vehicles, then statistical analysis of the results is performed and Finite Element (FE) analysis is run, and finally the results are interpreted in terms of Failures-In-Time (FIT) figures. The difficulty this far has been, that the wear-out type of component level data has not been applicable within parts-count and similar sub-system level reliability evaluations. The basic reason for this has been that when applying parts-count method, a constant failure rate is assumed, which is not usually the case when looking at component level test results. Introducing time-averaged hazard rate values, which can be easily applied within the sub-system level risk analysis, has circumvented this problem. The method to create the time-averaged hazard rate values is described in detail and the applicability of this concept is discussed.