TAILORING TEMPERATURE HUMIDITY LIFE TESTS WITH IN-SERVICE ENVIRONMENTDATA/

Humidity combined with temperature and voltage is considered a major f ailure stimulus in electronic components, printed wiring boards, and a ssemblies. 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 methodolo gy to determine realistic rests based on measured usage environments. Plastic encapsulated microcircuits in the commercial airplane environm ent will be used to demonstrate the approach.