Reappraising the Impact of Environmental Stresses on the Useful Life of Electronic Devices

Abstract

The notion of lifespan of an electronic device (or system) is formulated in terms of a reinterpretation of the concept of electronic systems reliability (ESR) so that the impact of ‘physical’ geographic environmental stresses, notably: psychrometry and aridity, which are known to vary from one location to another could be effectively accounted for. The proposed formulation is based on a conscientious analysis of climatic data and its relationship with the longevity of electronic devices. To validate our proposal, we employed a veridical approach, wherein we compared the failure rate of a widely used electronic biomedical electrocardiogram (ECG) device based on standard environmental ‘conditions’ and reference values and then computed the lifespan of the same device based on our proposed configuration using the average climatic conditions prevalent in five countries that are geographically spread across the length of the Earth. Our proposed approach estimates a lifespan of only 2 years when the device is used in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as opposed to an average lifespan of 40 years when the same device is deployed for use under average environmental conditions prevalent in (the capital cities of) China, Japan, the USA, and Britain. Results from both aridity-based and psychrometry-based interpretations of ESR suggest that the ECG device has a lower lifespan when used in harsher arid environments which also infers a greater influence of physical geographic proximity on the smooth, reliable, and prolonged operation of electronic devices.