Single-shot device reliability challenges

Today's budgetary concerns represent constraints that limit the overall budget of many programs and, subsequently, also the reliability program budget. Because of this, often times product testing may be significantly scaled down or not performed at all. This results in limited to no test information to support a reliability prediction for a development system, including single-shot devices. This lack of data early and throughout the developmental phase can result in an inaccurate reliability prediction or, at the least, one with a limited confidence. This paper will discuss the challenges associated with addressing and mitigating these inaccuracies. It will start by emphasizing the need and approach to gaining a thorough understanding of the system's life cycle. This includes a detailed understanding of the system's operational and non-operational phases, including environments and durations of exposure, and operating sequence (with durations). The paper will then illustrate use of this information to identify and employ reliability information using an example problem to develop an accurate prediction for the single-shot device under study.