ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about an important conditional probability associated with product failure, called the hazard rate. The length of life of a product is the length of time until the product fails to perform according to specifications. When the product fails to perform according to specifications, it is said to have failed. The failure time T for any product varies from one item to another and is, in fact, a random variable. The density function for a product failure time is called a failure time distribution. The reliability of a product is the probability that the product will meet certain specifications for a given period of time. Systems—electronic, mechanical, or a combination of both—are composed of components, some of which are combined to form smaller subsystems. To investigate the performance of the central processing unit (CPU) of a certain type of microcomputer, 20 CPUs were placed on test for a period of 5,000 hours.
