Environmental Stress Screening
Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) involves imposing environmental and work-related stress, such as various temperatures, humidity levels and vibrations, on a product to expose potential defects that cannot be detected through the typical functional testing conducted in the production process. Finding and eliminating these defects as soon as possible reduces the chances that premature products will be shipped, allowing for more effective quality control to ensure that users receive stable products.
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ESS Stress Screening can effectively improve product yield, reduce the number of repairs (RMA), and improve customers’ Confidence Level. |
Stress screening itself is a process as opposed to a reliability test. Common items included in the stress screening method for electronic products include Temperature Cycling, Burn In, Vibration, etc. The figure below is a traditional bathtub diagram. Traditionally, Infant Mortality refers to the early failure period. This shows that Fails Removed Via Screens emphasizes the defect screening part of the process.
Bathtub curve |
The Institute of Environmental Sciences Technology (IEST) in America published the first research report on Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) for electronic system products in 1984. This research report revealed that Environmental Stress Screening greatly reduces the failure of products in the market. It also puts forward the best selections and suggestions.
IEST Survey of Screening Effectiveness/1984 |
According to statistics from GE, for newly designed products, the proportion of failures in the market is as follows: Design Defects 33%, Flawed Components 34%, and Process Issues 33%. If environmental stress screening is adopted for high-end products, the defects caused by components, manufacturing processes, and other such factors can be detected early, and the quality of product manufacturing can be improved.
MA-tek’s Reliability Laboratory is continuously expanding its experimentation and production capacities to construct a complete range of component to system level product reliability tests. We aim to provide a variety of reliability and technical services. We are also conducting infant mortality screening (ELFR) for many customers.
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