With the 21st century focus on efficiency and productivity, factory automation equipment manufacturers have joined the aerospace and defense industries reliability bandwagon, striving for little to no down time or failure on manufacturing floors.

Subsequently, reliability design requirements are now often mandated by factory automation equipment manufacturers. Product engineers must not only focus on embedded solutions that meet cost and performance goals, but devices that will help to assure overall end equipment reliability requirements. While integrated circuits have enabled quantum leaps in performance, size, and overall cost of embedded systems, the reliance on various memory elements and employment of small-geometry silicon process technologies introduce reliability challenges.