Track 1 Session 2
10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday March 26, 2008

Highly Accelerated Tests and Burn-in: Applications, Success Stories, Limits and Guidelines for New Products

This presentation describes the introduction of HAT (Highly Accelerated Life Tests) and HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screening) burn-in at Trixell in order to diminish early failure rate. First, HAT has been performed on complete products. More than knowing the weakest points of our products, the aim was to evaluate the interest and pertinence of a HASS burn-in on Trixell detectors. Some similarities have been found between failures that appeared during the HAT tests and those compiled in the after-sales database. Then Trixell decided to apply a new burn-in based on HAT results. The environmental conditions, proof of screen and efficiency process will be detailed in the presentation. With the good results, we decided to apply HASS burn-in in our detector production step.

Today, the new Trixell detectors will pass through HASS burn-in. The complexity of our products and competition of the market oblige us to reduce early failures to a minimum. Therefore, Trixell is widely using HAT tests as soon as possible in the product conception step to be able to:

• Reveal the weakest points and perform some failure analysis with developers to improve the product before fixing the design and beginning the production.
• Perform an efficient HASS burn-in, in the right conditions, on the first produced detectors.