HALT Technique to Predict the Reliability of Solder Joints in a Shorter Duration

The Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) process subjects test articles to accelerated combined environments of thermal, dynamic, voltage, and current to find weak links in a given product design. The technique assesses fatigue reliability of electronic packaging designs used for long-duration deep space missions by testing using a wide temperature range (–150 to +125 °C), and dynamic acceleration range of up to 50g. HALT testing uses repetitive, multiple-axis vibration combined with thermal cycling on test articles to rapidly precipitate workmanship defects, manufacturing defects, and thermal cycling-related weak links in the design. This greatly reduces the product development time by rapidly finding problems and qualifying the packaging design quickly. Test vehicles were built using advanced electronic package designs using the surface mount technology process.