Establishing reliability goals for new technology products

This paper presents alternative approaches to reliability goal setting for electronic hardware, with emphasis on in-house manufactured IC components and hybrid subassemblies. It addresses methods taking into account market sensitivity assessment, previous generation performance analysis, cost optimization and technology assessment. It describes the logic and rationale of these methods in terms of total reliability cost and empirical reliability assessment formulas as applied to actual products. Field data allows assessment of presented methods for accuracy.