Robert, We have been using HALT and HASS testing now for a couple of years. HALT is Highly Accelerated Life Testing and is generally a combination of heat/cold cycling along with random vibration while equipment is in full operation. It is intended to find the limits of the product in that the various test parameters are increased until failures occur. Sometimes the failures are corrected with design changes or deficient sources of material are found. Once the maximums are found they are scaled back to an acceptable level, test profiles designed and HASS testing begins. HASS is Highly Accelerated Stress Screening and is intended for use by manufacturing people on every product produced. This test is a very effective way of eliminating the long term "burn-in" which is traditional with most companies.
There have been a few attempts are providing certifications to these tests but in my opinion these are not useful. Who currently "certifies" burn-in? The program is usually administrated by your own reliability people and is tailored to fit the company and the product.. Besides whenever there is a revision to the product, the HALT/HASS testing can be modified to suit without too much trouble when in-house people are responsible. As far as I know, there are no "requirements" by any agency for this type of testing. I hope this is useful information. Doug Powell, Compliance Engineer Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. do...@ftc2.aei.com ---------- From: Robert F. Martin ITS/QS-Box To: emc-p...@ieee.org Subject: HALT testing List-Post: emc-pstc@listserv.ieee.org Date: Monday, January 19, 1998 6:21PM Can anyone enlighten me on the requirements for HALT testing? Bob Martin Sr. Technical Manager ITS- Northeast r...@itsqs.com P.S. - Thanks to everyone for recommending Werlatone directional couplers. (They should pay a finder's fee, there were so many recommendations!) In fact, I have several of their couplers. The one I was trying to replace was one of theirs.
