Reliability & Qualification

Burn-in testing is a reliability screening process that stresses electronic components or systems under elevated temperatures and voltages, typically for several hours, to force early failures. It identifies infant mortality defects and errors before your devices are deployed in the field, enhancing long-term reliability.

Make no mistake: devices with latent defects that aren’t tested properly in early-life screening in the production facility don’t fail there — they fail in the real world in the customer’s hands. This can leave them with failed tasks, malfunctioning equipment, or worse, human safety incidents.

The value of burn-in in reliability and qualification programs comes down to one thing: the ability to apply controlled, repeatable electrical and thermal stress over a sustained period. That stress is what separates burn-in from functional testing; it’s not checking whether a device works once, it’s finding out whether it holds up again and again in all of its potential environments.

New process nodes, new packaging formats, and new device architectures all introduce new reliability concerns and considerations that need to be accounted for, unlike previously tested and vetted semiconductors in prior generations. Micro Control works with customers to review and adapt burn-in configurations at each transition, ensuring the approach stays calibrated to the actual reliability risks of the devices being tested.