We are developing a smart cable for a customer. The market potential is hundreds of thousands of units. The vendor who designs and supplies the boards (with firmware) that will be built into the cables is making prototypes now. We can easily test these for correct functionality, but as far as long-term reliability and quality, I'm not sure how best to reduce the risk of systemic or high incidence field failure, which in those quantities would be an absolute nightmare scenario for a small company like ours. How do we test prototypes and mass production first article samples to minimize such reliability and quality risk as much as possible?
Electronic – How do we test reliability and quality so as to minimize the risk of board failure in the field
boardfailurepcb-assemblyproduction-testingreliability
Best Answer
There are several different ways to approach this problem. Typically one does testing where the device is operated under stressful conditions to reduce its lifetime. This can include elevated temperature, temperature cycling, vibration, humidity, etc. Sometimes the test protocol runs to failure. The failure may be repaired and the test resumed until the next failure, etc. Often many samples are run at the same time.
For more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_accelerated_life_test
There are many companies which specialize in this type of testing service. I suggest that you contact one of them.