Overcoming Product Protections for HALT
Abstract
Kirk and Fred discuss turning off the built-in over-temperature production circuits to perform thermal HALT.
Key Points
Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss the methods for testing the empirical thermal limits of a power supply or circuit board.
Topics include:
- If possible, the thermal over-temperature protection (OTP) devices should be disabled, but it may not be possible, and we discuss the potential options for overcoming these limits.
- CPUs in PCs all have a thermal diode shutdown circuit built into the CPU die, but the manufacturer will not provide the code to override it, so an alternative was to use a water-cooled heat sink cooled from outside the chamber.
- The empirical limits found in a HALT should not be shared with all the internal departments, as it might be mistaken as a safe operational range if it is disclosed to the marketing department.
- HALT is based on the strength of materials and the fundamental limits of the current technologies, and not the end-use conditions or environments. Thermal HALT on a product that still has a thermal OPT only tests one device, the OTP, and you will not discover the real distribution of margins and strength of multiple samples.
Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.
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Show Notes
Please click on this link to access a relatively new analysis of traditional reliability prediction methods article from the US ARMY and CALCE titled “Reliability Prediction – Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach”. It is in the public domain, so please feel free to distribute it. Attempting to predict reliability is a misleading and costly approach to use for developing a reliable system.
Here is a link to the book “Next Generation HALT and HASS: Robust design of Electronics and Systems,” written by Kirk Gray and John Paschkewitz.
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