Tailoring Temperature/Humidity Life Tests with In-Service Environment Data

Humidity combined with temperature and voltage is considered a major failure stimulus in electronic components, printed wiring boards, and assemblies. Accelerated temperature/humidity tests are commonly used to evaluate the moisture resistance of electronics, but these are rarely linked to the application environment. This work proposes a methodology to determine realistic tests based on measured usage environments. Plastic encapsulated microcircuits in the commercial airplane environment will be used to demonstrate the approach.