In today's electronic environment, operating reliability for continued daily use of electronic products is essential. This book discusses the reliability of products that lie dormant for long periods of time and are subject to stresses such as humidity, ionic contaminants, temperature, radiation, shock, and vibration. Non-operating reliability is especially critical for life-saving electronic products such as fire alarm systems, standby power sources, and burglar alarms. Air bags in automobiles, earthquake alarm systems, and radiation warning systems in nuclear power plants are also covered. This physics-of-failure approach is also important to maintaining defense hardware such as missiles and munitions systems which often lie dormant for years before being deployed on very short notice
