V/W-band Accelerated Life Test System

"Demonstrating long term reliability of advanced millimeter-wave RF device technology is imperative to future military and commercial next generation system deployment. However, significant issues limit RF reliability assessment on millimeter-wave semiconductor technology. Without effective reliability assessment of this semiconductor technology the at risk level for an end-user is very high.Innovative solutions that mitigate technical implementation challenges of millimeter-wave RF accelerated life testing are the enablers for the development of industry test standards and commercial regulation awareness. A proposed architecture for achieving technology innovation combines a modular set of generic baseband building blocks with band-specific RF network building blocks. Segmenting the millimeter wave circuit functions in a multi-channel accelerated life test system platform allows creation of plug-n-play RF functionality in a self-contained miniature environmental test chamber.Specifically, the architecture developed will provide a self-contained multi-channel reliability test sub-system configuration that integrates all RF functions, environmental controls, and DC conditioning in an enclosed module to significantly reduce cost per site for V/W-band RF accelerated life test systems. In addition, this architecture provides for a virtual multi-channel system concept allowing capacity to be added at minimal quantity size and significantly reducing initial cost and future capacity growth costs."