Four decades of reliability progress

The author reviews progress in reliability that has occurred in the four decades ending in 1989. Progress was most evident in the area of electronic components, where estimated reductions in active element failure rates in the neighborhood of five to six orders of magnitude were made possible largely by the development and production of solid-state LSI circuitry. This component improvement was accompanied by the increased application of digital circuitry in equipment and system design. These advances, along with improved manufacturing methods and controls, made reductions possible in electronic equipment and systems failure rates, for a given level of functional complexity. The influence of management motivation on quality and reliability evident in the US automotive industry is noted. The lesson to be drawn from this historical examination is that major reliability improvements are made possible, primarily, by radically new technology either in the product itself or in manufacturing methods