With a consumer product we track a field failure rate.  One strategy is to
establish an accelerated thermal cycle test and maintain a correlation
between the number of accelerated cycles to failure and the field failure
rate for the same product during the life of the product.  With consumer
products the market cycle is short so new data points are generated each
year.  Subsequent accelerated thermal cycling on new products might predict
whether the new product will have a  better or worse field failure rate
based on previous data.

One potential gap in this stategey is sorting out the field failures due to
solder joints from other mechanical or electrical problems.  Another obvious
gap is that the model doesn't begin to take useful shape for several years.
If Pb Free solder is here to stay we might as well get started.

What holes do you see in this stategy?

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