A Blackbox Failure Rate Prediction Method for Power Electronic Converters

Product functionality, quality, and reliability are essential as the product works under different operating environments. Reliability is an essential factor to consider by the product manufacturers to provide a warranty by estimating the lifetime. Due to this, manufacturers calculate the product's failure rate during the design stage by considering worst-case conditions. Various methods are available to predict a product's reliability as per the product life cycle phase. Telcordia SR-332 standard is a more widely used standard for telecom equipment reliability prediction based on empirical methods. This paper describes the reliability prediction methods from the Telcordia SR-332 to estimate the rate of failure of electronic components. Moreover, the failure rate calculations are presented for the Blackbox part count method for the circuit level parts. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and the failure rate is calculated for an LLC converter. The influence of reliability, including stress factors like temperature, environmental, electrical voltage, and current, on failure rates is presented. The presented method is only for a steady-state failure rate over the useful lifetime. This method is mainly used for the product during the design phase to estimate product reliability if there is neither a laboratory test nor field failure data.