• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • Capacitors
  • Resistors
  • Inductors
  • Filters
  • Fuses
  • Non-linear Passives
  • Applications
  • Integrated Passives
  • Oscillators
  • Passive Sensors
  • New Technologies
  • Aerospace & Defence
  • Automotive
  • Industrial
  • Market & Supply Chain
  • Medical
  • RF & Microwave
  • Telecommunication

Design for Reliability: How Stress Simulations Can Help

27.11.2019

Toray to Boost Polypropylene Film Production to Meet Rising Automotive Capacitor Demand

8.6.2023

Yageo Expects Passive Components Inventory Correction for at Least Two Next Quarters

8.6.2023

May 2023 ECIA NA Electronic Components Sales Sentiment below April Expectation

7.6.2023

Paumanok Issues Passive Components in Oil and Gas Electronics Market Outlook 2023-2028

5.6.2023

Researchers Study Aluminum Dissolution to Increase Supercapacitor Voltages, Suggest New Way of Al Thin Film Deposition

5.6.2023

Frenetic Offers Frenetic Zero One Month Free Magnetic Design Tool

5.6.2023
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • EPCI Membership & Advertisement
  • About
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
Passive Components Blog
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Medical
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication

    Toray to Boost Polypropylene Film Production to Meet Rising Automotive Capacitor Demand

    Yageo Expects Passive Components Inventory Correction for at Least Two Next Quarters

    May 2023 ECIA NA Electronic Components Sales Sentiment below April Expectation

    Paumanok Issues Passive Components in Oil and Gas Electronics Market Outlook 2023-2028

    Researchers Study Aluminum Dissolution to Increase Supercapacitor Voltages, Suggest New Way of Al Thin Film Deposition

    Frenetic Offers Frenetic Zero One Month Free Magnetic Design Tool

    Murata Releases 150C Automotive Crystals

    KAMIC Group Acquires Wound Components Specialist AGW Electronics

    4th PCNS Registration Opens !

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos
    • Sensors

    Exploring Frenetic and Maxwell Options for an Optimal Transformer Performance in LLC Circuit

    Fast 25kW SiC EV Charger Design; OnSemi and Würth Elektronik Webinar

    PFC Inductor Magnetic Design Considerations; Frenetic Webinar

    Introduction to Capacitor Technologies; WE Webinar

    Self-Adjusting and Economical Switched Capacitor Balancer for Serially Connected Storage-Cells

    How to Design EMC Efficient Power Converter; WE Webinar

    Selecting Capacitors for High Power Buck-Booster Converters

    How to use Off-the-Shelf Transformers in Switching Power Supplies

    Simple Capacitors Pre-Charger Based on Unique ‘Floating Integrator’

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Preferred Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Medical
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication

    Toray to Boost Polypropylene Film Production to Meet Rising Automotive Capacitor Demand

    Yageo Expects Passive Components Inventory Correction for at Least Two Next Quarters

    May 2023 ECIA NA Electronic Components Sales Sentiment below April Expectation

    Paumanok Issues Passive Components in Oil and Gas Electronics Market Outlook 2023-2028

    Researchers Study Aluminum Dissolution to Increase Supercapacitor Voltages, Suggest New Way of Al Thin Film Deposition

    Frenetic Offers Frenetic Zero One Month Free Magnetic Design Tool

    Murata Releases 150C Automotive Crystals

    KAMIC Group Acquires Wound Components Specialist AGW Electronics

    4th PCNS Registration Opens !

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos
    • Sensors

    Exploring Frenetic and Maxwell Options for an Optimal Transformer Performance in LLC Circuit

    Fast 25kW SiC EV Charger Design; OnSemi and Würth Elektronik Webinar

    PFC Inductor Magnetic Design Considerations; Frenetic Webinar

    Introduction to Capacitor Technologies; WE Webinar

    Self-Adjusting and Economical Switched Capacitor Balancer for Serially Connected Storage-Cells

    How to Design EMC Efficient Power Converter; WE Webinar

    Selecting Capacitors for High Power Buck-Booster Converters

    How to use Off-the-Shelf Transformers in Switching Power Supplies

    Simple Capacitors Pre-Charger Based on Unique ‘Floating Integrator’

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Preferred Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
No Result
View All Result
Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result

Design for Reliability: How Stress Simulations Can Help

27.11.2019
Reading Time: 5 mins read
A A
6
VIEWS

Source: EE Times article

By Balaji Siva Prasad Emandi. A method for simulating stress and faults early in the design phase to aid in the “Design for Reliability” of a product. Reliability of a product is the probability for it to perform the intended functions without failure under stated conditions for a stated period of time. This number plays a pivotal role in the success of the product apart from other factors, such as efficiency, ease of use, etc. A product with poor reliability not only degrades the customer’s experience but also deteriorates the company’s reputation in addition to increased service and warranty costs.

RelatedPosts

AVX Releases High-Temperature 150°C Glass-Encapsulated Multilayer Varistors

Most Reliable, Most Efficient and Price Effective Solid Tantalum Capacitors

COTS procurement for space missions

Stress on a component is a key parameter affecting the time for which it can function well. For example, if the datasheet specification of absolute maximum gate to source voltage rating of a power MOSFET is 20V, it is driven at voltages less than 15V. This is done to make sure that the voltage stress on the silicon dioxide layer between the gate and source is minimized while ensuring that the device turn-on occurs at the right instants.

This way, the ratings of the components in a design are selected to have sufficient margins. If the devices are selected with higher rating margins, the product becomes bulky and costly. Alternatively, if devices are selected with lesser or insufficient rating margins, they are over stressed, which could lead to early failures. Performing stress analysis and fault analysis for various fault conditions and operating conditions help to analyze the stress on the components and to assess the reliability.

This blog introduces a method of simulating stress and faults early in the design phase to aid in the “Design for Reliability” of a product. This can be achieved by using an industry-proven multi-domain system design simulation software.

Reliability and the bathtub curve

Let us take a peek at the reliability curve that designates the failure rate of a product over its lifecycle.

See featured image: Bathtub curve of Failure Rate; image source: Wikipedia

 The failure rate curve is comprised of three parts:

1.     Decreasing failure rate early in the life – Primary causes of these failures are improper design, bad manufacturing practices, etc. The failure rate is high initially but rapidly decreases as defective products are identified and discarded, and early sources of potential failures are surmounted. These failures can be avoided or minimized before production by performing various nominal analysis and stress analysis in design phase using a simulation tool.

2.     Constant failure rate during mid-life – During this phase in the lifetime, the failure rate is low and constant. These failures occur randomly, and the reasons are multifold (e.g. bad weather conditions, insulation failures, operational misuse, etc.). Performing Monte Carlo simulation, worst case, and automatic fault analysis for various scenarios using a simulation tool helps to avoid or minimize these failures.

3.     Increasing failure rate at the end of life – Late in the life of the product, the failure rate increases as age and wear take their toll. Performing parametric sweeps and stress analysis with de-rated parameters can help account for such factors in the design phase itself and extend the product life.

All these failures that occur at various stages in the lifecycle of a product end up costing the manufacturer in terms of service and warranty costs. A simulation tool can help to avoid or reduce these failures and decrease the cost significantly.

Design for reliability calculates the reliability of a design, the selection of margins on component ratings, the duration of burn-in tests, and so on. The inputs to such an analysis are the operating stress of the components, the ratings of the components selected, the likelihood of failure under different conditions, the availability of redundancy, etc. Common practice is to estimate the operating conditions from existing designs and arrive at an approximate reliability. With the availability of advanced simulation tools, it is easy to predict the behavior of a design under different conditions, such as conditions that are likely to occur in field and provide accurate inputs to reliability calculations. This helps to optimize the design for higher reliability during design phase on simulation platforms even before a hardware prototype is built.

Stress analysis

Stress on a component is a measure of the ratio of the actual quantity (voltage/current/power/temperature) applied on it when it is placed in an electrical circuit to its maximum rating. For instance, if the power rating of a resistor is 0.25 watt and the actual power dissipation in it when connected in an electrical circuit is 0.20 watt, the stress on the resistor is 80%. This value is normally estimated based on the experience of the electric circuit and calculations, if available. It becomes more difficult and inaccurate when the number of components in the design increases with each component having several rating parameters such as voltage, current, average power, peak power, etc. Measuring the operating stress on all the components through hardware measurements is nearly impossible due to the requirement of advanced measuring equipment, rework on the hardware to make the measurements, experimental setup to test various operating scenarios, and the potential safety risk to the test engineers.

In addition, it is standard practice to use a derating factor to account for wear and tear, and to design the system with sufficient margins. This is also called Factor of Safety (FoS). Accounting for derating factors and calculating the stress ratios manually for reliability analysis is very cumbersome.

When a simulation tool is used, the reliability analysis can be easily done. Derating factors can be applied to the parameters in stress analysis simulations and the ratio of the operating condition to the de-rated rating value is calculated as the stress ratio. So, in the simulation environment, the designer will be able to predict the stress on each component accurately and thereby size the components adequately. Without such analysis, the ratings selected might have huge margins resulting in increased cost and bulky components, which are contrary to the common industry requirements such as “reduced costs” and “smallest possible footprint.”

The main requirements for stress analysis are the availability of accurate simulation models and the ability to include the ratings that the datasheets of the components provide. In addition to this, the simulation tool should be able to predict the circuit behavior precisely and accommodate all the operating conditions to perform a comprehensive analysis. When the operating conditions are known, the tool should compare the simulated results with the ratings of the components and provide a user-friendly report that displays the stress ratios.

Using simulation early in the design phase helps to analyze the performance of the design well in advance, even before going to a hardware prototype. Performing advanced analysis, such as stress analysis, will result in optimal designs that need a lesser number of hardware iterations. The natural outcome is that the designs can be more robust with a shortened development cycle time and reduced cost.

SaberRD is a simulation platform capable of performing advanced system level simulation using accurate component models.

Transient Analysis with Stress Simulation as run in SaberRD

Stress Analysis Report as run in SaberRD

When a Stress Analysis is performed along with Fault Analysis, the results are more interesting. The designer can predict the components that might eventually fail when a fault occurs by looking at the stress report and the simulation results for all fault scenarios.

This method of virtual verification of stress on different components helps to optimize the reliability of the design with accurate measurements instead of subjective estimations and experience. The stress on the components is calculated using the analytical method and the ratings are selected appropriately. This helps to minimize design failures and lengthens the flat portion of the bathtub curve reducing the service and warranty costs for the manufacturer.

Simulation also offers a great reduction in design expenditure along with shortened development cycle time.


Balaji Siva Prasad Emandi
Balaji Siva Prasad Emandi is a Corporate Application Engineer for Saber in the Verification Group at Synopsys. Balaji enthusiastically supports pre- and post-sales customers in the domain of simulation and development of Power Electronic subsystems.

Related Posts

Capacitors

Toray to Boost Polypropylene Film Production to Meet Rising Automotive Capacitor Demand

8.6.2023
28
Market & Supply Chain

Yageo Expects Passive Components Inventory Correction for at Least Two Next Quarters

8.6.2023
63
Market & Supply Chain

May 2023 ECIA NA Electronic Components Sales Sentiment below April Expectation

7.6.2023
38

Upcoming Events

Jun 13
June 13 @ 12:00 - June 16 @ 14:00 EDT

Pre Cap Visual Inspection per Mil-Std-883 (TM 2017)

Jun 14
11:00 - 12:00 CEST

STRETCH.flex 2.0 Stretchable PCB Technology to the Limits

Jun 20
June 20 @ 12:00 - June 22 @ 14:00 EDT

Copper and Gold Wire Bonding

View Calendar

Popular Posts

  • Understanding High-Precision Resistor Temperature Coefficient of Resistance

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Why Low ESR Matters in Capacitor Design

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is a Dielectric Constant of Plastic Materials ?

    4 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 0
  • Capacitor Selection for Coupling and Decoupling Applications

    28 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 0
  • Ripple Current and its Effects on the Performance of Capacitors

    3 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 0
  • Dielectric Constant and its Effects on the Properties of a Capacitor

    7 shares
    Share 7 Tweet 0
  • How to Choose the Right Inductor for DC-DC Buck Applications

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Filter Q Factor Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter Subscription

 

PCNS Call for Papers !

Archive

2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017

Symposium

Passive Components Networking Symposium

Passives e-Learning

Knowledge Blog

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • EPCI Membership & Advertisement
  • About

© EPCI - Premium Passive Components Educational and Information Site

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Video
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Preferred Suppliers
  • Events

© EPCI - Premium Passive Components Educational and Information Site

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.