Lasting Just Long Enough

Abstract

Kirk and Fred discuss the subject of reliability and how appliance manufacturing companies may design for a limited life in order to sell new models.
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Make it Less Robust

Abstract

Dianna and Fred discuss requests to engineers to make it less robust.
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Conference Value

Abstract

Dianna and Fred discuss conference value: maximizing the benefits of conferences and assessing their value for participation.
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Starting a Consultancy

Abstract

Dianna and Fred discuss starting a consultancy.
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Thermal HALT

Abstract

Kirk and Fred discuss a paper Kirk wrote about how thermal HALT can be a tool for finding marginal signal integrity issues.

Key Points

Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss Kirk’s paper on the use of thermal HALT, initially posted on Kirk’s website, acceleratedreliabilitysolutions.com, in 2018, and a re-edited version that Fred recently posted on Accendo Reliability’s website. You can find a link to the article in the show notes below.

Topics include:

• Kirk found little when he researched for information and data about how the physical electronics, especially the PWBA (printed wiring board assemblies) in high-speed digital systems, the variations in the board layers, and the surface roughness of the wiring traces affect the quality of the signal integrity (SI).  
• As data bus speeds increase, effects causing errors in data transmission that were not significant at the time (when bus frequencies were in the megahertz range) became dominant at the gigahertz frequencies of today’s digital systems. Interconnect resistance, capacitance, and inductance are frequency-dependent, and as bus speeds increase and geometries continue to shrink, these variables may prove difficult– if not impossible– to model accurately.  
• Thermal HALT and varying voltage and  clock margins may simulate the lot-to-lot parametric variations in semiconductors and PWBA’s, resulting in SI errors, but since few companies disclose their most useful methodologies, published data remains scarce

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Dealing with Ongoing Changes

Abstract

Kirk and Fred discuss the challenge of adding changes to a product during the development process so that they can design and build the prototypes.
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Executing the Plan

Abstract

Carl and Fred continue discussing the listener question about building an effective reliability program. After discussing some of the finer points about creating the reliability plan, the podcast focuses on execution of the reliability plan.
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Building a Reliability Program

Abstract

Carl and Fred discuss a voice message received on the Accendo Reliability “speak pipe.” The caller is trying to build a reliability program at his company. The company already has a good testing program, but needs to supplement with support for reliability in design.
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What Counts

Abstract

Carl and Fred discuss a listener question about what type of field or test issues to count when assessing or estimating reliability in a project.
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Facilitator and Deep Understanding

Abstract

Carl and Fred discuss  an Inside FMEA reader question: “does a facilitator have to have a deep understanding of the subject matter they are facilitating?”
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Influence vs Facilitation

Abstract

Dianna and Fred discuss influence vs. facilitation and the difficulty of trying to do both at once.
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