Temperature is generally considered to be a key parameter in the design of electronic components and equipment, and cautions concerning temperature and its relationship to reliability are widely documented. While some studies suggest that temperature is the most critical stress that influences microelectronic device failures, the actual failure mechanisms have generally not been quantified in terms of whether a steady-state temperature, temperature range, rate of temperature change, or a spatial temperature gradient induces failures.
Currently, temperature-dependent models such as the Arrhenius and the Eyring models, originally proposed to model the effect of temperature on chemical reaction rates, are widely applied to microelectronic devices. These models predict the effect of temperature on electronic component failure rates under the assumption that the dominant component failure mechanisms depend on steady-state temperature. However, the correlation between steady-state temperature and failure mechanisms needs to be confirmed using failure analysis. In fact, most of the microelectronic device failure mechanisms are not highly steady-state temperature dependent within the equipment operating temperature range [1; 2, pp. 61 152]. Besides, detailed assessment of the role of steady-state temperature, after failure analysis of field failure returns, often does not provide clear evidence that a lowered temperature would have prevented that failure, or that a higher temperature would have caused an earlier failure. Therefore, the use of burn-in without attention to the dominant failure mechanisms, and the nature of their temperature dependencies, such as on steady-state temperature, temperature range, temperature gradient, and temperature change rate, is a misapplication...
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
