Planning environmental stress-screening based on DOD-HDBK-344 - A case study

Abstract

Environmental stress screening (ESS) has been extensively used as a technique to improve electronic equipment reliability in the field by subjecting the equipment to temperature cycling, vibration and other environmental stresses during the manufacturing process. There are standards for ESS planning available. However, there are difficulties in establishing an optimum ESS regimen when using these standards for ESS planning. This paper intends to discuss these problems and at the same time, suggests a possible approach. The approach is illustrated by the development of an ESS program for a real life electronic system. The approach is especially suited for small-scale production for which opportunity for reiteration is reduced and hence, ESS has to be carefully designed from the beginning.