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How to Perform Failure Analysis

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The best way to perform failure analysis is by using certain procedures. These procedures have been in force for many years and are what businesses rely on the most to check for failures or defects. The whole gambit of parts or products is checked against known requirements to verify the reliability of those parts or products. The idea behind these procedures is to uncover the mechanism that is causing the failures and find the way to improve these mechanisms so as to reduce the frequency of failures. These are some of the most common procedures that are used today:

• Visual Inspection: This is the first stage in the process of failure analysis. Here, a visual inspection is done to determine to what extent the damage has been done to cause the failure. Usually this can be done with the nagged eye or with a magnifier. Whatever apparatus is used, the bottom line is the need to see where the failure occurred so as to make corrections. Even if this defect happened in one or several places, by indicating the exact locations, a solution can be drawn to determine why the defect occurred to begin with.
• Electrical Testing: This was stated above, but to clarify it some more, will help make the subject a little bit more understandable. Electrical testing is considered one of the fundamental procedures that are involved to catch failures. Every component is tested to against the normal parameters of the part of components in question. By doing this, a failed part can be quickly discovered and removed. This way a replacement part can be done after which further testing will verify that new part will correct the defect. If the new part does not correct the defect, the best resolution is to replace the whole component, even the board if necessary.
• Non-Destructive Evaluation: As was explained above, this procedure helps to provide exactly what the failure was, where the failure occurred, and the reason for the failure. And all this is done without taking the product or component apart. This way a determination can be drawn without actually taking the part or component apart.
• Destructive Evaluation: This is where the part of component is literally taking apart piece by piece until the defective part is located. This could take a while, depending on how quickly the defective part is found. This can provide the leeway to get rid of the failure, but it also means reassembling the part of component. However, if the failed part turned out to be the board itself, then the whole thing would go back to manufacturing where a new board would be made from scratch.

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