Announcing Sherlock 5.2 With Semiconductor Wearout Predictions

Newest release of Sherlock Automated Design Analysis™ software assures compliance with aerospace manufacturers’ quality requirements

Beltsville, MD (PRWEB) - DfR Solutions, leader in quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) solutions for the electronics industry, today announced the next release of Sherlock Automated Design Analysis™ software - Version 5.2. Advanced features include Semiconductor Wearout Analysis, of particular interest to industries that require long service lifetimes and operate in rugged environmental conditions, such as aerospace, automotive, defense, and other high performance industries.

Currently, avionics manufacturers must use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts and assemblies that are not specifically designed for the rugged use environments, long lifetime requirements, and high consequence of failure conditions faced in the aerospace industry. To address this challenge, major aircraft manufacturers have developed reliability standards and requirements to which their suppliers must comply. All suppliers to these aircraft companies must assure and demonstrate reliable performance of parts and sub-assemblies in their specific use environments.

SAE standard EIA-4899, required by major aerospace platform integrators, requires avionics manufacturers to address four major semiconductor wearout mechanisms. The Semiconductor Wearout module in the latest release of Sherlock enables avionics suppliers to comply with these requirements quickly and easily, using an automated process. Sherlock now allows manufacturers the ability to evaluate and predict the risk of semiconductor wearout using an approach that follows SAE ARP 6338 (recently released). Sherlock uses multiple methods depending on the available component-specific data to produce wearout results including overall scores, reliability goals, and a life prediction curve for each part analyzed. Ultimately, the Semiconductor module allows users to perform a more accurate analysis which is easier to use and based on rigorous physics. The results of the analysis also can be more easily communicated to, and understood by, the users’ customers.

“The new Semiconductor Wearout module in Sherlock 5.2 is a significant advantage for manufacturers and their electronics suppliers in the aerospace industry,” stated DfR Solutions CEO Craig Hillman. “Avionics suppliers will be able to prove reliability to their customers. If they want to work with leading aircraft manufacturers, this is an absolute must.” said Hillman.

Other New Sherlock 5.2 features include: 

• IPC-2581 File Support - the ability to import IPC-2581 full function mode files to create a new project within Sherlock or to define a new circuit card within an existing project. This import process is like other supported import formats such as ODB++. IPC-2581 is an open global standard for assembly and manufacturing data supported by the IPC-2581 Consortium.
• Part Modeling - the ability to selectively enable and disable FEA modeling for a specific part in its Part Modeling module
• Lead Modeling - modified lead modeling method that utilizes multiple elements, as needed, to model lead feet and shoulders. This provides better FEA results for leads with long feet and/or shoulders.

About Sherlock Automated Design Analysis™ Software 
Sherlock is the first-of-its-kind Automated Design Analysis software for analyzing, grading, and certifying the expected reliability of products at the circuit card assembly level. Based on the science of Physics of Failure, it is used by the electronics industry across all markets. Sherlock continues to evolve, incorporating new innovations and enhancements allowing users to manage increasingly complex analyses faster and more efficiently than ever before.

About DfR Solutions 
DfR Solutions has world-renowned expertise in applying the science of Reliability Physics to electrical and electronics technologies and is a leading provider of quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) research and consulting for the electronics industry. The company’s integrated use of Physics of Failure (PoF) and Best Practices provides crucial insights and solutions early in product design and development and throughout the product life cycle. DfR Solutions specializes in providing knowledge- and science-based solutions to maximize and accelerate the product integrity assurance activities of their clients in every marketplace for electronic technologies (consumer, industrial, automotive, medical, military, telecom, oil drilling, and throughout the electronic component and material supply chain). For more information regarding DfR Solutions, visit http://www.dfrsolutions.com.