Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[economaniac]

Reliability testing, Comb probably can speak better to this but my understanding is that semi co's guarantee that no more than a certain percentage will fail over a fixed period of time subject to certain conditions- ie less than .5% failure over 20 years at -20-120C. For consumer products the manufacturer can then calculate the total probability of failure over the warrantied product life. If a component fails to meet its promised performance I believe the manufacturer is liable for incidental damages. For example, a couple Capacitor manufacturers used a flawed electrolyte solution and the bad caps were installed in a whole bunch of Taiwanese motherboards. I believe that the way the contracts are written the cap maker is on the hook for the cost of repairing/replacing those boards.

E