Abstract
Reviews extensive data on both environmental testing and life testing (greater than one-million device hours of biased aging) of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) and discusses the dominant failure modes possible during a typical 20-year lifetime. Results indicate that the proper procurement, packaging, and screening of TECs can provide failure rates much less than the 1300 FITs quoted by Bellcore. The overall reliability of standard 18 couple TECs installed in the Astrotec Laser Module are found to be 359 FITs at 10 years, assuming a 40 degrees C T/sub HOT/ and a 20 degrees C Delta T. The random failure rate is 140 FITs at 60% confidence limit based on laboratory aging data alone.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: