OPTIMAL BURN-IN SIMULATION ON HIGHLY INTEGRATED CIRCUIT SYSTEMS

Bum-in, a screening technique to improve product reliability, is especially useful for highly integrated circuit systems. But, in most applications, the resulting systems reliability after burn-in is worse than what has been forecasted, because of “incompatibility” not only among components but also among different subsystems and at the system level. To deal with this phenomenon, we present a simulation method to compensate for the lack of field data. Also, a stress-strength model is implemented using weighted factors and a model based on nonlinear programming theory is designed to find the optimal burn-in policy that satisfies the reliability requirement and cost restriction. The program presented here can serve as an “IC Information Query System” for system designers to consider at the design stage.