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A sudden fail-open fault can cause multiple secondary failures if it is fast and the circuit contains an inductance; this causes large voltage spikes, which may exceed 500 volts. A broken metallisation on a chip may thus cause secondary overvoltage damage. [1] Thermal runaway can cause sudden failures including melting, fire or explosions.
Varistors can fail for either of two reasons. A catastrophic failure occurs from not successfully limiting a very large surge from an event like a lightning strike, where the energy involved is many orders of magnitude greater than the varistor can handle. Follow-through current resulting from a strike may melt, burn, or even vaporize the varistor.
When overheating, the temperature of the part rises above the operating temperature. Overheating can take place: if heat is produced in more than expected amount (such as in cases of short-circuits, or applying more voltage than rated), or; if heat dissipation is poor, so that normally produced waste heat does not drain away properly.
A thermistor is a semiconductor type of resistor in which the resistance is strongly dependent on temperature. The word thermistor is a portmanteau of thermal and resistor.The varying resistance with temperature allows these devices to be used as temperature sensors, or to control current as a function of temperature.
Intermittent failures can be a cause of no-fault-found (NFF) occurrences in electronic products and systems. NFF implies that a failure (fault) occurred or was reported to have occurred during a product’s use. The product was analyzed or tested to confirm the failure, but “a failure or fault” could be not found.
Another type of thermal switch is a PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) thermistor; these thermistors have a "cutting off" temperature at which the resistance suddenly rises rapidly, limiting the current through the circuit. When used in conjunction with a thermistor relay, the PTC will switch off an electrical system at a desired temperature.
System-level soft errors occur when the data being processed is hit with a noise phenomenon, typically when the data is on a data bus. The computer tries to interpret the noise as a data bit, which can cause errors in addressing or processing program code. The bad data bit can even be saved in memory and cause problems at a later time.
Accelerated life testing is the process of testing a product by subjecting it to conditions (stress, strain, temperatures, voltage, vibration rate, pressure etc.) in excess of its normal service parameters in an effort to uncover faults and potential modes of failure in a short amount of time.