System and Method for Bouncing Failure Analysis

Abstract

A method for analyzing fault modes that may cause a fault is presented in which a multi-point analysis may be performed to identify multi fault modes that are interrelated in causing the fault. The method provides for easy and systematic switching from a top-down to bottom-up approaches of analysis to insure accurate and easy to perform multi-point analysis of the related fault modes.

1 . A method comprising:
 identifying a group of fault modes that may cause a defined fault;   selecting, defining as single-point fault mode and excluding from said group all fault modes that may cause said fault when occurring one-at-a-time;   selecting, defining as double-point fault mode and excluding from the group of faults left after the previous step all fault modes that may cause said fault when two from said remaining faults occur sequentially or concurrently;   repeating the previous step for the remaining fault modes N−1 times to produce a N-point fault mode analysis, where N is an integer-equal or greater than 1.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising in each step of identifying, for N greater than 1, a step of indicating the nature of occurrence of the N-point fault modes with respect to each other, said indication is selected from the group comprising concurrently and sequentially and don't-care. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claims 1  or  2  further comprising:
 producing a fault tree representation of said fault modes.   
   
   
       4 . The method of  claims 1  or  2  further comprising:
 producing a failure mode effect representation of said fault modes.   
   
   
       5 . The method of  claims 3  or  4  wherein said representation is produced using top-down approach and bottom-up approach interchangeably during said production of said representation.