Modified highly accelerated life test for aerospace electronics

Abstract

Highly accelerated life test (HALT) uses stimulation to find out the weakness of the product and thus improve the quality. The current HALT test has its limitations. Aerospace electronics face much higher vibration environments than consumer electronics and telecom industries. In many cases, the traditional HALT testing level may not be high enough to stimulate a failure. That defeats the purpose of HALT. Aerospace electronics also require a more regulated testing with predictable results. Current HALT procedure has many random factors which may change the outcome of the testing. The product that passed HALT may not be able to pass the same level qualification test. The proposed modified HALT test uses the same traditional chamber used by most aerospace electronics manufacturers and performs at a level of 80% or more of the traditional HALT test. The results are more regulated and predictable. The failure mechanism will be more obvious to detect. The results can also be used to calculate the reliability of the product using the most published methods.