How long do common electronic components survive for?
Semiconductors generally have a lifetime of a million years or so when dry and at room temperature. Polymer encapsulated devices have shorter life with humidity; all silicon devices have shorter lifetimes with temperature. At a junction temp of 175°C, life is measure in hours or less. The term lifetime is perhaps deceptive. A million year lifetime for a transistor does not assure a single transistor will last 1 million years. Reliability is a statistical thing; some individual components fail right away, a few occasionally fail during the life of the devices, then at the end of life, the failure rate increases. This behavior is called a bathtub curve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_cur… Since a piece of electronic equipment usually has many devices, and a single device failure typically prevents the equipment from functioning, the individual devices must have a long life for the equipment life to be decent. M
