Qualification of electronic card assemblies

As part of the cost of developing a new product, product managers are often willing to pay for qualifying unknown components or subassemblies for their application, in order to ensure that their product will last for its intended life and quality requirements. However, they are unwilling to pay excessive costs over an unacceptable time period to obtain this information. As a result, the Technical Approval Agencies have been driven to find less expensive ways of ensuring reliable products, in a shorter time period, without taking unacceptable risks. One way is by testing more often at the subassembly level than at the component level. The authors discuss the card-assembly-level qualification strategy and look at the advantages of qualifying at this level. They also discuss how the disadvantages are being addressed