Life cycle of electronic components refers to a period of time ranging from its design and put-into-operation to obsolescence. With the ongoing and rapid change of technology, electronic part is increasingly shortening its life time; and since many of the electronic parts that compose a product show a significantly shorter lifecycle than that of the product, the component obsolescence brings big challenge for OEM or EMS manufacturers, especially for those in defense, medical, military and aerospace sectors requiring long lifecycle of product application.
When a part becomes outdated, despite the issued EOL notification, a lot of buyers and engineers who need to be informed when a part goes obsolete never see the notice. “The problem is when a supplier wants to notify customers about an EOL or PCN, they go by who bought the part over the last 24 months,” says Frescura, CEO of PCNAlert. “Well, if an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider has shut down a facility or a contact person has moved to another location that creates a gap in communication,” he says. If seeking help from aftermarket, they should pay higher fees, so it is not suitable for large procurement. Therefore, making a prediction of the part lifecycle is very important.
The life time of component are usually divided into six stages including Introduction Stage (characterized by high production costs), Growth Stage (featuring y the part's market acceptance), Maturity Stage (characterized by high-volume sales), Decline Stage (featuring decreasing demand and generally decreasing profit margin), Phase-out Stage (the key signs are discontinuance notice, a last-time buy date, alternative parts), and Discontinuance and Obsolescence (manufacturers stops production of the part).
The traditional method to monitor and forecast lifecycle is the “scorecard” approach, mainly depended on an array of technological attributes; but this approach does not capture market trends accurately.
Another way includes an "Availability Factor" method, which projects a "safe" usage window for a part. This approach should rely on market and technology factors to predict the obsolescence of devices with similar technology and market characteristics. The disadvantage is to fail determining the life cycle stage of the part.
The third approach is to combine the life cycle curve of both devices and technology attributes. According to the article “Electronic Part Life Cycle Concepts and Obsolescence Forecasting” written by Rajeev Solomon, Peter Sandborn, and Michael Pecht, this method involves seven steps:
1. Identify device/technology group;
2. Identify part primary and secondary attributes;
3. Determine number of sources;
4. Obtain sales data of primary attribute of device/technology group;
5. Construct life cycle profile and determine life cycle profile parameters;
6. Determine the zone of obsolescence from the life cycle profile of the primary attribute;
7. Modify the zone of obsolescence based on secondary attribute(s).
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life cycle,electronic parts,life time,component obsolescence