Tekmos has introduced a new and exciting development in our production. With the start of several government contracts we have been given the opportunity to expand our product reliability and dive into military level testing. Zachary Kolb was hired and brought onto the Tekmos team to take the lead on our new level of reliability testing.
There are several types of testings we have begun that follow the Department of Defense Test Method Standards for Microcircuits (MIL-STD-883). Some of these methods are not done in house and are sent off to our local reliability counterpart, Criteria Labs who are do tests such as UHAST, Vibration Frequency, and temperature cycle tests.
One of the test methods from the MIL-STD-883 we have now begun to use is placing all production parts under a seal/leak test. Once completed and retuned we re-test these parts on sight for a final inspection before they are sent out the door.
One of the central tests we use in house to measure product reliability is a Tri-temperature parametric testing. When our microcircuit has been released as a production part our AC and DC parameter tests are also released. In turn, we take our device and place it on our DUT board and then put them under temperature using a temptronic thermostream. We then cool the device under test to -55 degrees C and allow our AC and DC parameters/patterns to run through the part.
Once tested we can then see the effects that the lower temperature has on the timing of our devices. With the same thermostream we can test the same device at 125 degrees Celsius. We then compare both temperatures to our room temperature, 25 degrees’ Celsius test. At that point, we are able to identify how various temperatures effect our parametric tests and justify the amount of stress we can have on our products while they are still capable of passing within an acceptable parametric limit. Testing these functional tests at multiple temperatures allows us to conform to MIL-STD-883 for Tri-temp testing.
With these tests, we can create our very first FAI reports. The First Article Inspection Reports (FAI) are a new way for us to give our devices a military level reliability and then forward this information on to our clients. As we continue to use these new Test Methods for our part and package reliability it has been noted favorable that even after these different types of stress inducing tests our products remain in-tact and our parts still pass functional patterns.