Temperature-Base FEA with Sherlock 5.4 from DfR Solutions

Beltsville, MD – March, 2018 – DfR Solutions, a provider of quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) solutions for the electronics industry, today announced the next release of Sherlock Automated Design Analysis™ software – Version 5.4.  Advanced features include Temperature-based FEA, Materials Library Expansion, Component Failure Modes, and a new Sqlite Parts Library option.  These expanded capabilities continue to empower Sherlock users to not only analyze their designs, but to make faster, more accurate reliability predictions.

Sherlock Version 5.4 Features:

Temperature-Based FEA

In extreme environments like aerospace and automotive, electronics reliability is critical to the performance of the product and the safety of its users.  The new Temperature-based FEA capability enables users to simulate boards experiencing simultaneous temperature-dependent mechanical and vibrational stresses, modeling to real-world conditions where products are exposed to many stressors at the same time.  This new analysis is performed directly inside of the Sherlock software, without the need for other FEA tools, for faster, more accurate fatigue predictions.

Component Failure Modes

Component level failure, unrelated to solder fatigue, can occur without thermo-mechanical stresses and significantly influence the overall board reliability. This advanced new Sherlock feature allows users to predict the failure of components due to wearout (long-term degradation). This is significant to IoT, automotive, wearable and other technologies where PCBs operate in a relatively benign environment, and wearout becomes the dominating influence on the lifetime of the components.  No other board-level modeling tool provides component-level failure predictions.

Materials Library Update

The electronics industry is ever-changing, and the variety and complexity of materials used in electronics design is vast.  Only Sherlock includes an extensive materials database that is constantly growing. In Sherlock version 5.4, over 100 new materials have been added including a variety of today’s materials utilized in all sectors of the electronics industry: conformal coatings, potting materials, epoxy molding compounds, and underfills.  Temperature-dependent material effects are automatically incorporated, saving time in data entry and allowing designers and engineers to make reliability predictions faster and more efficiently.

SQlite Shared Parts Library

With this new shared parts library option, Sherlock users will experience improved query performance. The Sqlite Part Library can be accessed directly from third-party tools providing maximum flexibility for users of all abilities.

‘Sherlock 5.4 is just one more example of our drive to improve our customer’s ability to accurately predict the reliability of their products,’ said Dr. Craig Hillman, CEO of DfR Solutions.  ‘No other simulation tool on the market has that critical capability,’ noted Hillman. ‘Sherlock 5.4 recently received an Innovation Award from IPC APEX for pushing the boundaries of technology and changing the technological landscape of the electronics industry.’ said Hillman.  ‘But we won’t stop there, keep an eye on the horizon for even more ground-breaking new advancements in Sherlock in 2018.’