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Application Note

AN56.01.en

Reliability:
Specification of MTBF and service lifetime
for PULS power supplies
Author: Bernhard Erdl, founder, president and chief developer of PULS GmbH

In practice, the terms ‘MTBF’ and


‘service life’ are often mixed up or
used interchangeably.
However, these refer to different
processes and both values are
needed to describe reliability.
What they have in common is
that higher temperatures make
the values much worse.

MTBF
The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) value (as is the „failure in time“ specifica-
specifies how often a unit fails as a statisti- tion; 1 fit = 10-9 failures per hour), whereas
cal average. Even if all parties strive to keep the MTBF uses the unit of hours.
the number of failures as low as possible, The failure rate expresses how many fai-
it is unavoidable that a technical product lures are to be expected when a certain
fails with a certain level of probability. The number of units are operated for a specific
frequency of the failures is represented by period. This is the specification of interest
the symbol for failure rate  (Lambda). The in practice. An example: We take 1,000
MTBF is the reciprocal value of .  speci- units and operate them for 2,000 hours.
fies the number of failures per unit hour. In
practice, specifications in MTBF are more
common, presumably because the failure
rate  is given in 1/hour, and is a smaller

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Marketing
This results in 2 million unit hours. If we
observe 4 failures in this period, the failure Failure Rate

rate is 4 failures / 2 million unit hours = 2 x


10-6 per hour or 2 ppm per hour. The MTBF
as the reciprocal value of 2 x 10-6 per hour A B C
gives 500,000h, which is clearer.

A: Early Defects
You can look at it like this: If you operate
B: Random Defects
1,000 units for 2,000 hours, correspon- C: Wear Out
ding to 2 million unit hours, and the MTBF
is 500,000h, we can expect four failures (2
million / 500k = 4). MTBF
A simple working hypothesis could also Service Life Time
be that 500,000 units are operated simul- (log)
taneously, of which each has an MTBF of
500,000h: one unit would then fail every Figure 1: Bath graph
Error frequency across the service life of a unit
hour.

It is important to understand that the fai- Service life


lure rate/MTBF relates to statistical failures The service life does not relate to statistical is diffused by the component seal. The end
that apply from the first operating hour. failures during the normal operating time of the service life is defined by the manu-
Early failures are not taken into account as but instead refers to the time after which facturer when parameters such as capacity
the manufacturer should exclude these oc- the components are no longer usable and internal resistance have degenerated
curring at the customer‘s site. Wear effects due to wear and tear. This specifies after by a specific amount from the start value.
do not play a role here either, as it starts how many years a power supply can no The service lifetime is therefore dependent
from the phase in which no age-related longer perform its specified service. The on the type of electrolytic capacitor and
failures should occur. Higher temperatures most relevant components affecting the also on its operating temperature. Every
accelerate the processes, low temperatu- service lifetime in a power supply are the increase of 10°C reduces the service life by
res are very important for a low failure rate electrolytic capacitors. They contain liquid a factor of 2.
or high MTBF. electrolyte that during the course of time  

Comparison of the reliability values for the CPS20 with 24V/20A under various conditions

Service life:

10A 25°C 230V 475,000h *)


20A 25°C 230V 249,000h *)
20A 25°C 120V 198,000h *)

10A 40°C 230V 168,000h *)


*) Values exceeding 130,000h, in other words 15 years,
20A 40°C 230V 88,000h
are calculated values only and are no longer guaranteed
20A 40°C 120V 70,000h
by the manufacturers.

MTBF:

SN 29500 MIL HDBK 217F


20A 25°C 230V 882,000h 395,000h

Figure 2: Reliability values for the CPS20

August 2015 Rev. 1 page 2 / 4 www.pulspower.com


Order Number: AN56.01.en
Life Time
(1000 hours – log.)
Transatlantic Cable

1,000
Human

100
50,000h PULS
Power Supplies
PC
10
Car

1 Coffee machine

0.1 Toy
Missile

1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000


Figure 3:
MTBF (1,000 hours – log.)
Difference between service life and MTBF
using the example of several units

A clear comparison of the statistical failu- Since the introduction of the DIMENSION via calculation and the thermal stress via
re rate MTBF and the expiry of the service product range, PULS has been a pioneer in measurement. These values then produce
life in a range of applications is given in specifying the values for MTBF and service a program on the failure rate for the com-
figure 3. For example, in a rocket applica- life in its data sheets. Considerable value ponent under this stress condition and the
tion, a short service life of 5 to 10 minu- is set on ensuring that the definitions are total of the individual failure rates of the
tes is sufficient as in that time it has done clearly specified. components gives the total failure rate/
its job and then crashes. With the variety With the MTBF in particular, there are MTBF of the device.
of components it comprises, and in the many ways to calculate the figure and de-
light of the damage arising due to non- pending on the calculation method and
Life Multiplier
functionality, the failure time during these the definition of the operating conditions,
10 minutes should be very low, however, the results are very different. The simplest
meaning the MTBF is very high. A contras- method is the „parts count“. Here only
ting example is an amplifier in a submarine the number of components is counted
cable. It must last for 40 years as it cannot and multiplied by a mean failure rate to
be easily replaced; on the other hand it is calculate to the failure rate of the overall
not so complex and a poorer MTBF is ac- equipment. This is an over-simplification.
ceptable to compensate for the long ser- It is more precise, more complicated and Temperature Rise
vice lifetime. therefore unpopular with developers to
Figure 4:
consider each individual component in For every 10°C temperature rise, service life is halved
For high quality industrial power supplies, the power supply (which can be hund-
both the MTBF and the service lifetime are reds) to determine the electrical stress
important. During the normal duration of
use, as few failures as possible should in-
terrupt operation and the usability of the
machine should be achieved over many
years without changing components.

August 2015 Rev. 1 page 3 / 4 www.pulspower.com


Order Number: AN56.01.en
1
MTBF =
There are existing various standards for the
failure rate of the components. The MIL number of failures
=
number of power supplies x operating hours
Handbook 217F has widespread interna-
tional acceptance, but according to PULS‘ (lambda) = number of failures (fit) 1fit = 10-9 failures/hour
experience, the values it uses for failure ra-
tes are too conservative. The values in Sie- Figure 5: Definition of the MTBF
mens standard SN 29500 that are based
on a broad range of industrial experience with other manufacturers, and at +40°C PULS makes the reliability of its products a
are more realistic. The calculation method because this is a more realistic operating very high priority. As a consequence, the
is defined in the IEC 61709. When asses- condition as full load is assumed at all data for MTBF and service lifetime is de-
sing an MTBF value it is therefore always times. Even at a standardised full load, the scribed in great detail in the data sheets
important to know both the underlying bandwidth ranges from 254,000h (MIL, for every product and is specified precisely
data used as well as the operating con- 100Vac, +40°C) to 882,000h (SN 29500, for many operating conditions. In additi-
ditions (stress factors) of the equipment. 230Vac, +25°C), in other words a diffe- on, there is an in-house guideline at PULS
MTBF figures without this information are rence of a factor of 3.5. defining that for every product in the
worthless. DIMENSION range a minimum service life
The data specified by the manufacturers of of 50,000h has to be accomplished at full
As temperature has a significant influence, the electrolytic capacitors is used to calcu- load, nominal mains voltage 120V/230V
a precise definition is important here. The late the lifetime. These are minimum va- and an ambient temperature of +40°C
key issues are the temperature of the indi- lues as the manufacturers guarantee that in accordance with the method described
vidual components and these are depen- at the specified load, the capacity has de- above. This requires an additional loop in
dent on the ambient temperature and self- creased by no more than 20% from the the development process, but the user has
heating. The self-heating results from the baseline and the internal resistance is still the advantage that he can take any pro-
losses in the power supply and varies with below double the specified value. PULS duct from the range and rely on specified
the load and the input voltage. The ambi- determines the temperature stress of all and uniform minimum values. When loo-
ent temperature alone has a considerable electrolytic capacitors under different ope- king at the values for reliability in particu-
influence and as a result PULS specifies the rating conditions and then calculates the lar, significant differences in comparison to
MTBF at +25°C to facilitate a comparison service lifetime based on the manufactu- other power supplies can be seen clearly.
rer specifications. In practice this provides
a reserve because a power supply can still
function with these impairments but as
there are no further reliable specifications
available, this gives the user a good basis
for comparison.

August 2015 Rev. 1 page 4 / 4 www.pulspower.com


Order Number: AN56.01.en

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