Benefits of field failure distribution modeling to the failure analysis

• Failure rate estimation fits with an input for the FMEDA, required by ISO26262.
• Field modeling allows assessing customer risk in case of recurrent quality issue.
• Field failure distribution modeling can predict failure crisis earlier in time.
• Field failure distribution modeling uses failure mileage data of the failed parts.

The automotive components are newly subjected to safety requirements that are defined in particular by the ISO26262 standard. Meanwhile, customers request risk assessments or prediction studies on the number of failures expected in the field. These requirements from the ISO26262 standard and from customers lead component manufacturers to study new methods of failure rate estimation, in particular from field results. In this article, field failure distribution modeling with a typical Weibull model and its benefits for integrated circuit failure analysis are presented. Three case studies are detailed, in which the results obtained by the field modeling allowed to discriminate a failure by its Weibull parameters, to study the influence of application on the failure occurrence and the possibility to predict a quality crisis.