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38 The PCB Design Magazine • September 2015 assurance/reliability/durability testing is be- coming an even greater drain on the industry. The conversion to hybrid and electric vehicles brings with it an even greater increase in elec- tronic content. For example, the Chevy Volt lithium Ion battery module requires seven cir- cuit board assemblies for battery system man- agement and safety. Each of these assemblies must be tested in accordance with an exten- sive durability profile which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of additional testing. A True Physics-Based Modeling App To address this situation, a new class of knowledge-based automated design analy- sis (ADA) CAE tools for performing physics of PoF durability simulations and reliability as- sessments to ensure the structural integrity of electronic modules has been developed. One new CAE program is called Sherlock Automated Design Analysis™ for its ability to investigate a design and predict its susceptibility to failure mechanisms related to the intended usage envi- ronment of the application. The program works by performing a durability simulation in a vir- tual environment and calculating the durability life and reliability distribution of various failure mechanisms for the electronic component and structural elements on the circuit boards of an electronic module. This is similar to the way structural durability analysis is now performed for vehicle body, chassis and other mechanical systems and parts. Sherlock software is the result of years of PoF research to identify the failure mechanism feature Figure 1: Sherlock software imports standard circuit board CAD/CAM Gerber files or ODB++ archives and uses them to automatically create and run finite element models for structural analysis and PoF durability simulations/reliability assessments. PHySICS oF FAIluRE DuRABIlITy SIMulATIoNS FoR AuToMoTIvE ElECTRoNICS