Reliability engineering of electronic equipment a historical perspective

This paper traces the development of reliability engineering for electronic equipment. It discusses the trends affecting the discipline, some benchmark efforts, and their results. Reliability engineering has reflected the greater trends of history, and shown its value under a variety of political, economic, and social situations. Significant current developments include the end of the historical trend towards constantly increasing reliability in devices, a growing concern for software reliability, and initiatives to overcome the persistent problem of inadequate emphasis on reliability by program managers. Projected for the future is the integration of reliability engineering with computer aided design.