Designing for Reliability

The achievement of reliability is a goal that must be pursued from the very beginning of the system design project. The first step is to consider each individual component to be used in the system and to critically analyze its capabilities and limitations. The second step in the design project is to determine the applications of these components that tend to take advantage of the best capabilities of these components and avoid their worst limitations. This report lists brief analyses of components and the resulting component applications that have been made by the staff of Lincoln Laboratory over a period of several years. The third and final phase of the design project is the actual electronic circuit design, based on the component analyses and applications notes derived earlier and predicated on the achievement of high reliability. The thorough design method developed by Lincoln Laboratory is described in detail. This method provides reasonable component tolerances and adequate safety margins, and incorporates marginal checking throughout the design process. A detailed