Moving Automotive Electronics from Reliability/Durability Testing to Virtual Validation Modeling Using a Physics of Failure CAE App

Abstract

Quality, Reliability, Durability (QRD) and Safety of vehicular Electrical/Electronics (E/E) systems traditionally have resulted from arduous rounds of Design-Built-Test-Fix (DBTF) Reliability and Durability Growth Testing. Such tests have historically required 12-16 or more weeks of Accelerated Life Testing (ALT), for each round of validation in a new product development program. Challenges have arisen from:  The increasing number of E/E modules in today's vehicle places a high burden on supplier's test labs and budgets.  The large size and mass of electric vehicle power modules results in a lower test acceleration factors which can extend each round of ALT to 5-6 months.  Durability failures tend to occur late in life testing, resulting in the need to: perform a root cause investigation, fix the problem, build new prototype parts and then repeat the test to verify problem resolutions, which severely stress program budgets and schedules. To resolve these challenges, automakers and E/E suppliers are moving to Physics of Failure (PoF) based durability simulations and reliability assessment solutions performed in a Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Environment. When PoF knowledge is converted into math models and integrated into CAE durability simulations and reliability assessments tools, it can be determined if and when a device will be susceptible to failure mechanisms over its life cycle.

Investigation of the effect and optimization of material properties on the printed circuit board

“…Sherlock module makes the work much easier and saves time by including different types of components and a wide range of materials for electronic board design. 2…”

“…Sherlock module makes the work much easier and saves time by including different types of components and a wide range of materials for electronic board design. 2 Some steps followed to create the FEM of the PCB in Sherlock software are shown in Figure 7.…”

“…Salahouelhadj 12 created an FEM with anisotropic materials to investigate the effects of the parameters on the behavior of the circuit board, such as plate thickness, diameter of vias, and thickness of the PCB. McLeish et al 2 carried out a study on the use of Sherlock software in the creation of the PCB model. Hu et al 13 studied the conductive copper layer of the PCBs and investigated the structural effects of the copper mask on the circuit board.…”

“…Typically, each numerical simulation takes hours or even days. 2 As a result, efficient meta-models have become alternatives to costly design studies. In addition to providing an automated approach to the selection of the most appropriate metamodel for the problem, an independent test dataset should be used to evaluate the prognostic quality of the metamodel.…”