Fides (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ''trust'') is a guide allowing estimated reliability calculation for electronic components and systems. The reliability prediction is generally expressed in
FIT (number of failures for 10
9 hours) or
MTBF
Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the predicted elapsed time between inherent failures of a mechanical or electronic system during normal system operation. MTBF can be calculated as the arithmetic mean (average) time between failures of a syst ...
(Mean Time Between Failures). This guide provides reliability data for RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) studies.
Purpose
Fides is a ''
DGA'' (French armament industry supervision agency) study conducted by a European consortium formed by eight
industrialists
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
from the fields of
aeronautics and Defence:
*
Airbus
Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: ' ...
France
*
Eurocopter
*
Nexter
Nexter Systems (formerly known as GIAT Industries or ''Groupement des Industries de l'Armée de Terre'', Army Industries Group) is a French government-owned weapons manufacturer, based in Roanne, Loire.
Group organization
The Nexter group is ...
Electronics
*
MBDA
MBDA is a European multinational developer and manufacturer of missiles.[MBDA Inc. US Division Co ...](_blank)
Missiles Systems
*Thales Services
*Thales Airborne Systems
*Thales Avionics
*
Thales Underwater Systems
Thales Underwater Systems or TUS (formerly Thomson Sintra ASM, Thomson CSF DASM and then Thomson Marconi Sonar) is a subsidiary of the French defense electronics specialist Thales Group. It was created in 2001 and belongs to its naval division. It ...
The first aim of the Fides project was to develop a new reliability assessment method for electronic components which takes into consideration
COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) 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 (issue F notice 2). 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
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...
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 (''Union Technique de l'Electricité'') has accepted the Fides publication, with the reference UTE C 80 811 (available in both French and English). An international normative reference extension (
International Electrotechnical Commission) 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
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
,
Japanese organisations like
JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) as well as French companies or organisations like ''
EDF'' (''Electricité de France'', French electricity provider) or ''
CNES
The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is und ...
'' (''Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales'', the French space agency) showed an interest in FIDES methodology, but none of them are using FIDES at this time.
Further developments of the Fides guide (such as the improvement of existing models and the widening of the spectrum covered by component families) resulted in a new version of the Fides guide being published in the middle of year 2009.
See also
*
Reliability
Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Computing
* Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage
* High availability
* Reliability (computer networking), a ...
*
Reliability theory
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specifi ...
*
MTBF
Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the predicted elapsed time between inherent failures of a mechanical or electronic system during normal system operation. MTBF can be calculated as the arithmetic mean (average) time between failures of a syst ...
*
Failure rate
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
* (Software information sheet)
Further reading
*
External links
*
Fides guide website
(Requires free registration to obtain the Fides guide in both English and French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fides (Reliability)
Survival analysis
Reliability engineering
Engineering statistics