infant mortality

**Infant mortality** refers to **early failures from manufacturing defects** — the initial high failure rate period where latent defects cause premature failures, requiring burn-in and screening to prevent customer returns. **What Is Infant Mortality?** - **Definition**: Early-life failures due to latent defects. - **Bathtub Curve**: First region with decreasing failure rate. - **Timeframe**: First hours to months of operation. **Causes**: Contamination, particle-induced shorts, plating defects, incomplete solder joints, residual stress, CMP defects, lithography errors, assembly issues. **Why It Matters**: Customer dissatisfaction, warranty costs, brand damage, field returns. **Detection**: Burn-in testing, HTOL screening, electrical testing, visual inspection. **Mitigation**: Extended burn-in, process control (SPC), defect reduction, root cause analysis, supplier qualification. **Burn-In**: Operate devices at elevated stress to accelerate infant mortality failures before shipping. **Screening**: Electrical testing to identify weak devices. Infant mortality is **first curve in bathtub** — controlling it prevents customers from encountering day-one failures and costly returns.