Building in reliability (BIR) with critical nodes

Advances in technology have enabled the semiconductor industry to reduce reliability failure rates. However, the cost to continue the past methods of understanding reliability performance of these advanced technologies is increasing rapidly. While it is increasingly difficult to measure the reducing reliability failure rates, the philosophy of continuous improvement can be applied to the determination of reliability by focusing on the various steps in the manufacturing systems used to build the products. Building-in-reliability (BIR) is a philosophy where the inputs to manufacturing process steps affecting reliability are identified, controlled and improved leading to continuous improvement in product reliability. With BIR significant effort is placed on identification of the process steps, or process nodes, that have a significant effect on reliability.