[time-nuts] Reliability of atomic clocks

Mark Sims holrum at hotmail.com
Sun Mar 27 23:20:14 EDT 2016


> Mil-spec parts would be somewhat more reliable than commercial parts.
Actually,  that is seldom true.  The main difference between mil-spec parts and commercial parts tends to be in the post-packaging device testing (e.g.. extended temperature / voltage range).  They usually have the same guts inside the package.    I friend of mine was a test engineer at a major semiconductor manufacturer and he said their commercial parts were actually more reliable than the mil-spec ones.  The commercial parts were built in vastly greater quantities and their production flow / experience enabled them to continually fine tune the process and testing.  The production / test regimen of mil-spec parts tended to be locked-down by inflexible specs and procedures.  Changing anything required re-qualification of the entire process.


 		 	   		  


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