Intermittency Solution for FPGA/Ball Grid Array Now Available

Tucson, AZ (Feb. 10, 2009) – Ridgetop Group, Inc., a developer of advanced tools for prognostic-enabling critical systems, has announced its Sentinel SJ-BIST Electronic Prognostic Unit (EPU) product.

Directly addressing the large number of FPGAs being used in critical applications, Sentinel SJ-BIST™ is a synthesizable softcore that provides in-situ fault detection for solder joint degradation on ball grid array packages, according to company President and CEO Doug Goodman.

“With this unique technology, you can use real-time sensors to monitor the actual health of critical components or systems to determine, based on rate-of-change, their specific remaining useful life,” he said.

“This “canary” sensor approach is applicable to mission critical design situations where a possible failure could lead to significant revenue losses, create safety issues, and/or lead to an inability to support a Military mission. Our automotive and aerospace customers are enthusiastic about the results that they have achieved in applying this technology in critical applications. Intermittent connections are very difficult and time-consuming to isolate and Ridgetop has introduced an easy-to-apply solution to this problem.” he said.

In addition to the ability of the Sentinel SJ-BIST™ EPU to forecast failure, the Ridgetop Group technology can pinpoint the source of intermittent failures. Maintenance costs can be significantly reduced by employing condition-based maintenance (CBM) strategies that eliminate automatic replacement policies based on time, not true operating conditions experienced by the equipment.

With Ridgetop’s approach, users of critical equipment have real-time information on the capability of their component, schedule maintenance down time based on usage and save significantly through implementing a need based maintenance program.

Ridgetop’s electronic prognostic products are based on rigorous physics-of-failure progression models developed over many years of experience.

Ridgetop Group, Inc., founded in 2000, is the world-leader in providing a wide range of unique and innovative products in several forms, including hardware, software and system-level diagnostic and prognostic solutions.