On July 1st, Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor Company and Storage Products Company consolidated to form Semiconductor & Storage Products Company.This page describes reliability information of semiconductor products.

Before Testing

[As of April, 2011]

The following points must be considered before implementing reliability tests:

For what applications will the device be used?
In what possible environments and operating conditions will the device be used?
What are the possible failure modes and mechanisms, and what kind of accelerated stress testing is appropriate?
What level of reliability (failure rate, for example) does the market require for the device?
How long is the device expected to be in service?
How does the device rate in terms of innovation and importance?

These points must be considered when determining tests, stress conditions and sample sizes.
The following are accelerated stresses which can be applied to devices. They are described in detail in Accelerated Lifetime Tests.

Temperature
Temperature and humidity
Voltage
Temperature difference
Current

An important consideration in reliability testing is that the testing must contribute to the appropriate evaluation and improvement of semiconductor device reliability.
It is therefore important to accumulate reliability testing results, to perform detailed failure analysis when failure occurs, and to feed back the results to the design department and manufacturing process.