Highly accelerated life test

A highly accelerated life test (HALT) is a stress testing methodology for enhancing product reliability in which prototypes are stressed to a much higher degree than expected from actual use in order to identify weaknesses in the design or manufacture of the product. Manufacturing and research and development organizations in the electronics, computer, medical, and military industries use HALT to improve product reliability. HALT can be effectively used multiple times over a product's life time. During product development, it can find design weakness earlier in the product lifecycle when changes are much less costly to make. By finding weaknesses and making changes early, HALT can lower product development costs and compress time to market. When HALT is used at the time a product is being introduced into the market, it can expose problems caused by new manufacturing processes. When used after a product has been introduced into the market, HALT can be used to audit product reliability caused by changes in components, manufacturing processes, suppliers, etc. Highly accelerated life testing (HALT) techniques are important in uncovering many of the weak links of a new product. These discovery tests rapidly find weaknesses using accelerated stress conditions. The goal of HALT is to proactively find weaknesses and fix them, thereby increasing product reliability. Because of its accelerated nature, HALT is typically faster and less expensive than traditional testing techniques. HALT is a test technique called test-to-fail, where a product is tested until failure. HALT does not help to determine or demonstrate the reliability value or failure probability in field. Many accelerated life tests are test-to-pass, meaning they are used to demonstrate the product life or reliability. It is highly recommended to perform HALT in the initial phases of product development to uncover weak links in a product, so that there is better chance and more time to modify and improve the product.