Failure analysis of electronic components after long-term storage

• The work studied the effects of long-term storage on NOR gate components.
• Long-term storage has little impact on NOR gate components except for oxidation.
• The pin’s coating layer of components can be oxidized in a poor storage environment.
• The reason for oxidation is that the coating layer has some manufacturing defects.

The reasons for most failures of weapons systems are related to problems with the storage processes of electronic components. In order to analyze the impact of long-term storage on electronic components, failure analysis of NOR gate components has been investigated comprehensively in the present study. An accelerated storage degradation test was conducted to simulate a long-term storage environment. A mechanical test procedure is developed to illustrate the degradation condition of the samples. The morphology and composition of degraded parts are characterized by SEM, EDS, and FTIR. The results of our analysis demonstrate that long-term storage has little impact on the electrical properties and microstructure of NOR gate components. The main problem is oxidation of the pin’s surface in a poor storage environment, which could lead to contact failures. The reason for oxidation is that the coating layer has some defects due to imperfect manufacturing processes.