Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) is a process that uses a rapid high and low temperature oscillation system to reveal design flaws and deficiencies in electronic and mechanical assemblies. The purpose of HALT is to identify the function and damage limit of a product in the early stages of product development, thereby optimizing product reliability.It shortens the reliability test of new products, which originally took 6 months or even 1 year, to just one week. The product problems found in this week are almost the same as those found by customers after application. Therefore, the HALT test method has become a necessary verification for new products before they are launched on the market.Click here to know more→Product detail
What is HALT test?
HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) stands for Highly Accelerated Life Test. HALT is a test method that accelerates the exposure of product defects and weaknesses by applying gradually increasing environmental stress or working load. It is mainly used in the product development stage. It can expose the design and process defects of the product in a shorter time, thus providing a basis for us to make design improvements and improve product reliability.
HALT was first proposed and continuously improved by Hobbs in the United States. The main purpose is to increase the limit value of the object under test, thereby increasing its robustness and reliability.
HALT applies stress in a step-by-step manner, which can detect product defects, working limits and damage limits as soon as possible. The stresses applied to the product include vibration, high and low temperature, temperature cycle, power switch cycle, voltage margin and frequency margin test, etc. This test can quickly find defects in product design and manufacturing, improve design defects, increase product reliability and shorten its listing cycle. At the same time, it can also improve the design and accumulate basic data on product reliability, providing an important basis for subsequent product research and development.
The main test functions of HALT are as follows:
Use high environmental stress to stimulate product design defects and improve them;
Understand the design capabilities and failure modes of products;
Serve as a reference for high stress screening and audit specification formulation;
Quickly find defects in the product manufacturing process;
Increase product reliability and reduce maintenance costs;
Establish a product design capability database to provide a basis for research and development and shorten the design and manufacturing cycle.
HALT is applied to the product research and development stage to detect weak links in product reliability as early as possible. The stress applied is much higher than the stress of the product during normal transportation, storage, and use.
HALT includes the following contents:
1) Gradually apply stress until the product fails or malfunctions;
2) Take temporary measures to correct the failure or malfunction of the product;
3) Continue to gradually apply stress until the product fails or malfunctions again, and correct it again;
4) Repeat the above stress-failure-correction steps; find the basic operating limit and basic damage limit of the product.
What is HASS test?
The full name of HASS (High Accelerated Stress Screen) is the High Accelerated Stress Screening Test. HASS is a high accelerated stress screening conducted in the production stage after the product has obtained the working limit or damage limit through HALT. Generally, 100% of the products are required to participate in the screening.
The purpose of HASS is to reduce the potential defects of the product and try to eliminate these defects before the product leaves the factory. HASS mainly uses accelerated stress to find defective products in a short time and shorten the product improvement cycle.
HASS is applied to the production stage of the product to ensure that all improvement measures found in HALT can be implemented. HASS can also ensure that new defects will not be introduced due to changes in production processes and components.
HASS includes the following:
1) Pre-screening to eliminate hidden defects that may develop into obvious defects;
2) Detection screening to find obvious defects;
3) Fault analysis and improvement measures.
The difference between HASS and HALT:
1. Different stages: HALT is the development stage, and HASS is the early stage of production, or the production stage.
2. Different purposes: HALT test is a test to find out the shortcomings of the design and improve them, while HASS is a pass test and is a mass production quality control.
3. Different strengths: HALT test may cause damage to the product, while HASS test should not cause damage to the product, because after the HASS test, the product needs to be sold. However, it is strictly forbidden to ship products after the HALT test.
4. Different test methods: HALT test is to accelerate stress until the product fails; HASS test is a process of repeated but no product wear, gradual correction, and completion of the test outline.
5. HALT test and HASS test optimize the failure rate and are at different stages of the device life cycle.
