Field Guide of Failure Mechanisms in Electronics

This article is part of an ongoing effort to transmit failure analysis experience to subsequent generations of engineers.  The techniques of failure analysis are commonly taught only by example in the lab and are rarely published or documented. The goal of this paper is to create a field guide of pictures of common failure modes to enable engineers to identify failure modes by inspection and predict the conditions under which they occur.  Knowing the name of the failure mode allows engineers to find more information in the references or by key word search. Predicting failure conditions allows engineers to avoid problems in the first place.