ABSTRACT
This chapter explores various methods for fabricating test fixturing and packaging for high- temperature accelerated testing of electronic components. Accelerated testing is a process by which a piece of hardware, an individual electronic device, a subsystem, or an entire system is subjected to a harsh environmental screening whether designed to shorten its life or hasten the degradation of its performance. Test fixturing and packaging capable of withstanding long hours at extremely elevated temperatures will, of course, be required for the implementation of any deployable harsh environment hardware. The four-position burn-in cards have been used in an on-going life test of package wirebonds for over four thousand hours at 400°C. The key to success with high-temperature fixture and process development lies in very careful process development, with special attention to plating quality, thickness, and sintering steps. Test leads bringing signals from instrumentation outside the high-temperature oven to the devices inside and back again will contribute unwanted inductance.
