Automotive Electronics

Automotive Reliability

Electronics started to influence the automobile industry in 1932, when Motorola applied vacuum tubes on automobiles. Then, in 1967, the German company Bosch applied IC chips into the fuel injection system of cars, which started a revolution in automotive electronics. Today, with the advancement of higher technology, Smart IC chips are used for fuel injection controls, cruise control, ABS brake system, transmission control, and many other uses.

Taiwan's industrial development has changed from information electronics to consumers electronics, optical telecommunications and automotive electronics. In the survey of Strategy Analysis from 2004~2006, the report shows a continuously growing number of factories entering into the automotive electronics market. However, due to the fact that the reliability standard of automotive electronics is different from our familiarity of consumer electronics, we started to research the laws and regulations of ICs and modules for automotive usage in 2007.

For standardize the reliability test of automotive ICs, in 1994, Chrysler, Ford, GM established the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC).

Currently, the members of this council consists of representatives from major automobile and automotive electronics/ semiconductor companies around the world. AEC set up two committees: (1) Quality Systems Committee and (2) Component Technical Committee.

The Quality Systems Committee is responsible for the quality systems management of products (ISO/TS 16949).

The Component Technical Committee is in charge of establishing reliability testing standard for automotive ICs, including techniques compiling data, sampling, and standards.

From 1996 till now, AEC has established continuously a series of standards: AEC-Q100 (Stress Qualification For Integrated Circuits) series and AEC-Q200 (Stress Test Qualification For Passive Components) series. These standards are approved by many Automotive Electronics companies around the world and currently being used by domestic and international companies with their own standards. Those that pass the test of AEC are seen as qualified high quality components and can be used in critical environments; therefore, basically, there is no need for conducting other component level tests.

Currently, besides the major car factories that have their own standards (such as NISSAN: NDS01, FIAT/ALFA ROMEO 9.90110, VOLKSWAGEN VW 801 01, GMW3172, HYUNDAI NO.ES 91500-00, FORD 00.00EA-D11-1, etc), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) is the main standard in America. In Europe, the main standard used is the ISO16750 series, in which Part 1 to Part 5 all have detail descriptions. In Japan, reliability testing follows the standards of the Japanese of Automobile Organization (JASO). In addition, IEC EN 60721 and IEC 605 are used internationally.

The table below is a summarized chart of the standards for consumer, industrial and automotive electronics. Each area has an extremely different set of standards. Besides, the severity and failure rate of test condition are totally different as well. We currently, can meet the standards of the chart below, and also provide a complete electric and material failure analysis to enhance product improvements.