Physics of failure‐based failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis for Integrated Circuits

Existing failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) methods, which still rely mainly on failure data and the empirical information of designers, suffer from subjectivity and inflexibility, which makes the application of these methods on electronic equipment, especially integrated circuit‐based equipment, less credible. Therefore, the idea of physics of failure (PoF)‐based FMECA is presented. First, the relationship between typical failure modes and the failure mechanisms of integrated circuits is analyzed. Based on the results, pseudo‐random samples are generated using a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. Then, the hybrid hypothesis test method is proposed to determine the failure distribution function, and then a mixed failure rate model based on failure factors is established to calculate the rates of failure modes. This method is applied to a main control module of a control system to correct the original FMECA results. Results show that this method has good applicability to the FMECA of integrated circuits and can obtain more objective and accurate analysis results compared to traditional methods, while being more applicable for testability verification tests.