Process sensors, simulation, and control to build in reliability

Building in reliability is fundamentally difficult because detailed mechanistic origins of reliability failures are not commonly known. Controlled process experiments and sophisticated characterization methods offer hope of revealing mechanisms more broadly. Real-time and in-line sensors present perhaps even more potential in two cases, (1) when their information is correlated with reliability performance, and (2) when used to achieve process control through course correction and/or fault management; the latter has special value in difficult situations where the reliability failure emerges from process integration sensitivities. Integrated modeling and simulation structures provide a vehicle for broad knowledge capture, an enabler of design optimization for reliability and other metrics, and a platform for effective process control