Fides (reliability)


Fides is a guide allowing estimated reliability calculation for electronic components and systems. The reliability prediction is generally expressed in FIT or MTBF. This guide provides reliability data for RAMS studies.

Purpose

Fides is a DGA study conducted by a European consortium formed by eight industrialists from the fields of aeronautics and Defence:
The first aim of the Fides project was to develop a new reliability assessment method for electronic components which takes into consideration COTS and specific parts and the new technologies. The global aim is to find a replacement to the worldwide reference MIL-HDBK-217F, which is old and has not been revised since 1995. Moreover, the MIL HDBK 217F is very pessimistic for COTS components which are more and more widely used in military and aerospace systems.
The second aim was to write a reliability engineering guide in order to provide engineering process and tools to improve reliability in the development of new electronic systems.

Method content

The Fides guide is made of two distinct parts. The first is a reliability prediction calculation method concerning main electronic component families and complete subassemblies like hard disks or LCD displays. The second part is a process control and audit guide which is a tool to assess the reliability quality and technical know-how in the operating time of the studied product, operational specification and maintenance.

Availability

The Fides guide is freely available on the Fides reliability website.

Standardization

The French standardisation organisation UTE has accepted the Fides publication, with the reference UTE C 80 811. An international normative reference extension is planned for the future.

Future

Fides has met great interest and success since the end of the study in 2004. The method has been quickly declared a standard that can be applied to French military programs. For two years, the French military experts of DGA have already used FIDES method in different major programs for Defence, in missiles or tactical telecommunications fields for example.
American companies like Boeing, Japanese organisations like JAXA as well as French companies or organisations like EDF or CNES showed an interest in FIDES methodology, but none of them are using FIDES at this time.
Further developments of the Fides guide resulted in a new version of the Fides guide being published in the middle of year 2009.