Planned short shelf life on component level will threat the future of "vintage"

[Mads Barnkob]

Not long into the future, we are talking mere years, old and discarded technology will no longer be able to enter a late life state as vintage with the current moves in component technology to only design to a very limited end product life time.

From this analysis: https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en/resources/marketeye/categories/passives/me-zogbi-20180404.html it is noted the following in cheap MLCC capacitor development

X5R High Capacitance MLCC
The key competitive area with respect to maximum capacitance per MLCC, coupled with change in capacitance with temperature is the X5R dielectric MLCC, which is not as stable as true X7R, but is acceptable in applications where the shelf life of the product is not more than three years (consumer audio and video imaging equipment, computers and some handset applications). X5R ceramic chemistry and supply chain is now among the most advanced expressions of nanotechnology n the world. This is where the higher capacitance breakthroughs in 220 to 470 microfarad will expand, making even smaller circuitry possible in multiple markets especially in all portable electronic devices.

What do you think the future holds for something like measuring equipment? I got some real old HP stuff but by the looks of it, even precision component industries will no longer design a product for long life times and properly haven't done so for many years already

[profdc9]

I guess it depends on what the failure mode is going to be.  For power supply bypass capacitors and the like, some drift in the capacitance value is tolerable.  If it is a short or open, obviously that's a bad thing.  I am not sure what nanotechnology they're talking about here, whether its some nanoparticle suspension of dielectric materials that is subject to long-term diffusion, electromigration, or simply decay.  Some of it appears to be because of the changing of the poling of the ferroelectric materials with long-term applied fields and also changes in the dielectric susceptibility with temperature:

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/5527
https://ec.kemet.com/mlcc-dielectric-differences

I guess it depends on how they're used.  If the application permits a wide range, but requires a large capacitance, for example a MLCC with 200 uF to 470 uF, then perhaps it will be ok.  I think it really depends on the engineer paying attention to the application of the MLCC; this is not a new problem.  The ferroelectric materials are somewhat similar to ferromagnetic materials in this respect, because both are used to store a large amount of energy in a small volume, but their energy storage capabilities sensitively depend on the poling of their domains with applied bias and temperature.

Dan

[the_anomaly]

I sure hope that's 3 years at max rated temp.  Definitely have a few products designed with some X5R caps in them that are intended for 5-7 year operating life.  Fortunately they will only be subjected to near room temp conditions. 

I agree with Dan; tolerance fluctuation is probably acceptable but not open or short failures. 

A board house convinced my previous employer to buy 2 years worth of inventory of MLCC back in Q2 2017.  They were predicting part shortages in the next year.

For measuring equipment, I feel like some things have become prohibitively expensive like scopes.  I just upgraded from an old BK Precision crt to a still old Lecroy 314 because Rigol products have questionable shortcuts and I can't afford new Tektronix. 

[futurist]

The most common thing that failed soon after warranty for me are printers.. I can't even remember how many I had, but the biggest surprise I had with products made to fail is when my friend's immersion blender failed few years ago (plastic gear broke). We decided to use it's motor for powering a ball mill. It didn't work for very long so we looked up the datasheet for the motor, and it said that the motor life expectancy is 26 h

[AndreiRS]

I don't know why they want all these micro electronic. These LCD TV, most of the space inside is empty, there is a bord here another there... The cell phones already die after some years because the "rohs pos" soldering just can't handle the chip heat that can reach 100ºC and then cools down very fast after you stop using. Printers are terrible, they don't sell printers, money comes from the ink. Another day I threw my cell phone into the bin... Could not fix it a second time. But the clock on the wall from around 1900 is still working lol. The phone also had a lot of empty space inside, they don't really needed those small components. I think the problem is the people who don't care if their electronics will brick after 2 years. People just think about the price. Look at the PC gamers, they always want pc boards that last long. And that is what the industry gives to them, otherwise they would not buy. But the general public is pretty happy with badly made stuff from China.

[petespaco]

I wonder what the quote means by "shelf life".
  Where I worked, "shelf life" meant the time that a product could sit on a shelf before being used and then still work as intended when it finally got sold.

Are they really talking about the "in-service lifetime" of the product?

Pete Stanaitis
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[Mads Barnkob]

I wonder what the quote means by "shelf life".
  Where I worked, "shelf life" meant the time that a product could sit on a shelf before being used and then still work as intended when it finally got sold.

Are they really talking about the "in-service lifetime" of the product?

Pete Stanaitis
---------------

That was also the meaning of shelf-life I grew up with.

Here the therm is used as in shelf in the store, a product they do not expect to be selling for more than 3 years.