Unlike traditional reliability testing, the Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) and Highly Accelerated Stress Screen (HASS) combine to push a product beyond its limits, identifying latent weaknesses in a short amount of time and ensuring your product can be counted on before it reaches the shipping door.

HALT is performed to uncover design and/or process weaknesses that would escape conventional qualification methods. The product is subjected to progressively higher stress levels; thermal dwells combined with voltage margining and power cycling, rapid temperature transitions, vibration, and combined rapid temperature transitions and vibration. HALT subjects the product to each of these stresses to the point of failure in order to assess design robustness and margin above its intended operation. Product failure is intended and when it occurs the product should be analyzed to identify the root cause and implement a possible repair – allowing the stress to be increased to find the next failure. This process is continued until either the fundamental limit of the technology of the product is reached, or the failure becomes too difficult to repair. The process will assure that the widest product margins are attained. Throughout the HALT process, the intent is to subject the product to stimuli well beyond the expected field environments to determine the operating and destruct limits of the product. Failures that typically show up in the field over a period of time at much lower stress levels are quickly discovered while applying high stress conditions over a short period of time. HALT is primarily a margin discovery process.

Once the HALT process is completed on the design, a HASS manufacturing screen can be developed to ensure that the products coming off the assembly line continue to meet the same high engineering standards. Many factors go into creating a screen and our staff will be happy to work with you to develop a screen that achieves your quality goals.

ARL is the premier HALT / HASS test provider because of our knowledge, experience and understanding of how to best apply these techniques and interpret the results. Our lab assists you from the start of the test development process, during testing and all the way through the analysis of the results. In addition, we work with you to ensure a successful product by providing reliability planning, procedure development, design analysis, and life / test data analysis. Contact our team today!