Patent ID: 6870378

Claim:
An apparatus for assessing the reliability of an electronic device, said apparatus comprising: a tunable thermal loading means for providing a cyclic thermal load to an electronic device and being tunable for at least one of temperature, rise time, thermal loading cycle, thermal loading duration, and area of thermal exposure; and a tunable electrical loading means for providing a cyclic electrical load to electronic device and being tunable for at least one of current density, rise time, electrical loading cycle, and electrical loading duration; means for measuring at least one of current, voltage and temperature of the electrode device to assess the long-term reliability of the electronic device; wherein said tunable thermal loading means creates from a thermal source a sequence of at least one cyclic thermal load comprising an ordered pair of a heating event followed by a cooling event, and wherein said tunable electrical loading means comprises a pulse forming network that creates a sequence of at least on cyclic electrical load.