MTBF and Prognostics--Comparison

The major objective for engineers is to design reliable systems that meet the stated requirements. No engineer or project team sets out to design a system that fails, but with growing complexity in electronic systems, the impact of component or module failure becomes more likely. The first question is how long a system will survive in its targeted environment. In the past, engineers have utilized mean time between failures (MTBF) calculations. This first-level estimate is not adequate for critical systems. Fortunately, there are tools and solutions available to mitigate these effects.