The international market is very competitive for high-tech manufacturers to day. Achieving competitive quality and reliability for products requires leader ship from the top, good management practices, effective and efficient operation and maintenance systems, and use of appropriate up-to-date engineering de sign tools and methods. Furthermore, manufacturing yield and reliability are interrelated. Manufacturing yield depends on the number of defects found dur ing both the manufacturing process and the warranty period, which in turn determines the reliability. the production of microelectronics has evolved into Since the early 1970's, one of the world's largest manufacturing industries. As a result, an important agenda is the study of reliability issues in fabricating microelectronic products and consequently the systems that employ these products, particularly, the new generation of microelectronics. Such an agenda should include: * the economic impact of employing the microelectronics fabricated by in dustry, * a study of the relationship between reliability and yield, * the progression toward miniaturization and higher reliability, and * the correctness and complexity of new system designs, which include a very significant portion of software.

Reliability, Yield, and Stress Burn-In explains reliability issues in Microelectronics Systems Manufacturing and Software Development with an emphasis on evolving manufacturing technology for the semiconductor industry. Since most microelectronics components have an infant mortality period of about one year under ordinary operating conditions, and many modern systems, such as PCs, are heavily used in the first few years, the reliability problem in the infant mortality period becomes extremely important. Burn-in is an accelerated screening procedure that eliminates infant mortalities early on in the shop before shipping out the products to the customers. This book will also help readers to analyze systems that exhibit high failure rate during a long infant mortality period. Reliability, Yield, and Stress Burn-In presents ways to systematically analyze burn-in policy at the component, sub-system, and system levels. Various statistical methods are addressed including parametric, nonparametric, and Bayesian approaches. Many case studies are introduced in combination with the developed theories. Included in the book is an introduction to software reliability. Reliability, Yield, and Stress Burn-In will help manufacturers and system designers to understand and to design a more reliable product given constraints specified by the users and designers. An understanding of the infant mortality period will solve many reliability problems, including those faced in the semiconductor industry and software industry.

Optimal Reliability Design, first published in 2000, provides a detailed introduction to systems reliability and reliability optimization. Techniques for maximizing system reliability are described, focusing on component reliability enhancement and redundancy arrangement. The authors present several case studies and show how optimization techniques are applied in practice. They also pay particular attention to finding methods that give the optimal trade-off between reliability and cost. The book begins with a review of key background material, and a discussion of a range of optimization models. The authors go on to cover optimization tools, such as heuristics, discrete optimization, nonlinear programming, mixed integer programming, optimal arrangement, and metaheuristic algorithms. They also describe the computational implementation of these tools. Many numerical examples are included, and the book contains over 180 homework exercises. It is suitable as a textbook for graduate-level courses in reliability engineering and operations research. It will also be a valuable reference for practising engineers.

Optimal Reliability Design is a detailed introduction to systems reliability and reliability optimization. State-of-the-art techniques for maximizing system reliability are described, focusing on component reliability enhancement and redundancy arrangement. The authors present several case studies and show how optimization techniques are applied in practice. They also pay particular attention to finding methods that give the optimal trade-off between reliability and cost. Chapters cover optimization tools such as heuristics, discrete optimization, nonlinear programming, mixed integer programming, optimal arrangement, and metaheuristic algorithms, and their computational implementation. Many numerical examples are included, as well as over 180 homework exercises. The book is suitable as a text for graduate-level courses in reliability engineering and operations research and as a valuable reference for practicing engineers.