Some product weaknesses become visible only when environmental stresses exceed normal operating conditions. Highly accelerated life testing uses that response to support design development. Commonly called HALT, this approach applies increasing stress to investigate where a product’s functions become unstable or damage occurs. The findings give engineers a starting point for understanding limitations and considering improvements.
The Applied Technical Services Family of Companies (ATS FoC) provides highly accelerated life testing services for manufacturers evaluating prototypes, assemblies, and finished products. We coordinate the test approach with your product’s configuration and development objectives.
How Does Highly Accelerated Life Testing Work?
HALT commonly progresses through several forms of thermal and vibration exposure. Each stage provides a different opportunity to observe product behavior. A program may include:
- Cold step stress: Lowering temperature through successive levels.
- Hot step stress: Increasing temperature while checking performance.
- Rapid thermal cycling: Moving repeatedly between selected temperature conditions.
- Vibration step stress: Increasing multi-axis vibration exposure.
- Combined stress: Applying thermal cycling and vibration together.
The sequence and conditions require product-specific planning. Not every sample can use the same profile, monitoring arrangement, or fixture. During exposure, functional checks help identify changes that visual examination alone could miss. The resulting observations can guide decisions about further testing.
What Is the Difference Between HALT and Qualification Testing?
Qualification testing generally evaluates a product against defined requirements. Those requirements may specify environmental conditions, exposure durations, and acceptance criteria. HALT asks a different question: where are the weaknesses and limits of the tested design? Stress may increase beyond the product’s published operating range to help answer it.
Consequently, a failure during HALT does not automatically mean the product fails its operating specification. Engineers must consider the failure conditions and their relevance. Likewise, completing HALT does not establish compliance with a customer specification or industry standard. Required qualification work should remain clearly identified in the overall test plan. Despite its name, highly accelerated life testing also does not independently determine how many years a product will last.
Which Products Are Suitable for Highly Accelerated Life Testing?
HALT is commonly used for electronic and electromechanical products. Suitable test articles can range from circuit boards and modules to integrated assemblies. Manufacturers may request testing during prototype development, before production release, or after a design revision. Product development and reliability teams often lead these projects. Before selecting samples, consider:
- Which design features need investigation
- Whether the samples represent the intended configuration
- How critical functions will be monitored
- Whether sufficient samples are available
- Whether permanent damage is acceptable
A well-defined objective helps avoid testing a convenient sample that cannot answer the actual engineering question.
How Should You Prepare for an ATS HALT Program?
Start with your product description, operating requirements, and known concerns. Drawings, previous test findings, and relevant failure history can help explain the project. We also review connections, fixtures, operating support, and reporting expectations. These details help establish a workable setup before samples enter the chamber. Our testing documents the applied conditions and observed responses within the agreed scope. Your team can use that information to investigate causes and plan improvements. ATS performs highly accelerated life testing in our ISO/IEC 17025:2017-accredited, ISO 9001:2015-registered testing laboratories.
Contact Us
Submit a request form on this page or give us a call at +1 (888) 287-5227 to discuss your development schedule and product priorities and begin planning a highly accelerated life testing program.
