Series Editor's Preface
The book you are about to read re-launches the Wiley Series in Quality and Reliability Engineering. The importance of quality and reliability to a system can hardly be disputed. Product failures in the field inevitably lead to losses in the form of repair cost, warranty claims, customer dissatisfaction, product recalls, loss of sale, and in extreme cases, loss of life.
As quality and reliability science evolves, it reflects the trends and transformations of the technologies it supports. For example, continuous development of semiconductor technologies such as system-on-chip devices brings about unique design, test and manufacturing challenges. Silicon-based sensors and micromachines require the development of new accelerated tests along with advanced techniques of failure analysis. A device utilizing a new technology, whether it be a solar power panel, a stealth aircraft or a state-of-the-art medical device, needs to function properly and without failure throughout its mission life. New technologies bring about: new failure mechanisms (chemical, electrical, physical, mechanical, structural, etc.); new failure sites; and new failure modes. Therefore, continuous advancement of the physics of failure combined with a multi-disciplinary approach is essential to our ability to address those challenges in the future.
The introduction and implementation of Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) in Europe has seriously impacted the electronics industry ...
