# Creation of a FIDES Lab model

In this documentation, we suppose you want to study the reliability of a product according to Fides guide. We use the work “product” as a generic word for your system of interest this system can be as small as a small microchip or a full system containing COTS equipment and several electronic cards. You will learn how to define how your product is made up and configured in the BOM Tree section, but before you will need to create a Mission profile.

## Mission-profile

A mission profile defines the environment in which the product is. Since the product may have several parts that have different mission profiles, several mission profiles can be created. For example, if a component is next to a heat source you may need to use a specific profile for this component. If your product is used in different environments for different client, you may also need several mission profiles. The mission profiles should be created before the product because it will be needed in the product configuration.

### Managing profiles

To have access to the profile management, you have to go to the Mission Profile tab

#### Table features

Profile management is based on 2 tables, before defining the mission profile, we will detail the generic features of tables.

As most Fides Lab tables, the profile table is made of 3 parts:

- Filter part at the top: typing a word in the text field will filter table and keep only line containing this word.
- The table itself
- The toolbar on the right contains buttons whose functions are defined below.

Button | feature
--- | ---
#i | Display the number of filtered lines
| Refreshing table
| Enable table edition (cell by cell instead of forms), don't forget to quit edition by clicking a second time on it, otherwise other features won't be available
| When table edition is enabled, you have to use this button to apply modifications
| This + button adds a new entity (an entity is an object corresponding to a line, here is the mission profile, it usually opens a window containing a form to edit the new entity
| Opens a form to edit the entity corresponding to the selected line
| Deletes the selected line(s)
| Copy the current selection to the clipboard
| Paste the previously copied element to the table, adding new line(s)
| Import table content from an EXCEL file
| Export table content into an EXCEL file
| Import data from a Open-Fides (the full entity, here the profile and its phases)
| Export selected profiles into Open-Fides format

If you want to edit a line (here the mission profile) in the standard mode, you have to double-click on any cell of the line. It will open a window that contains a form gathering all the editable fields of the profile.

If edit mode is activated (), each double-click enabled cell editing, you can type or copy/paste values in the cells.

### Creating new mission profiles

You can create a new profile using the add () button of mission profile table. Then edit the form:

You can put any information you can in the text field but the fields with a red start () must not stay empty.

The purpose of a profile is to contain phases. The phases describe the mission profile and so must be defined.

### Creating phases

When you select a mission profile on the left, the table of phases (on the right) displays the phases of the selection profile. By default, this table is empty since mission profiles are “empty” (without phase) when you create them. In order to increase the size of the right part, we recommend moving the vertical separator on the left like this:

Use the add () button of phase table to create a new phase, it will open the phase form:

All fields are mandatory, each one is related to the phase parameter defined in FIDES Guide, please refer to the guide for the definition of each parameter and its possible values. When the possible values are limited, a drop-down menu will let you choose the value. Most of the fields that require a numerical are followed by the unit. Units are very important to check, especially for people using other software having different default unit. Here most of the durations are in hour, and temperatures in Celsius degrees.

There is a specific GUI for π factors. In all the forms of FIDES Lab, π factors can be specified either with a numerical value or by answering questions in a specific π form. When you click on the π form button (), you must answer each question. The question are the ones of the guide; a description is added to help you to choose the right answer in the Response column. The weight column shows the importance of the answer in the total result.

Once you click on the OK button, the value of π application is no more editable.

if you want to be able to put a numerical value, you have to clear the π form, instead of clicking OK

It will close the form window and clear the π Application field, and it is now editable.

If you type an invalid value, the OK button of the phase form won't close the windows. Instead, it will display the invalid field in red.

### Editing phase with phase table

Instead of opening the phase form to modify each phase, you can use the table edition mode. Once activated with the unlock button, you can edit cell by cell, copy/paste and select values in drop-down menu if available.

## BOM

The BOM part is made of the BOM-Tree on the left, and the children list on the right.

### BOM-Tree

The BOM-Tree (or Product Architecture) is the description of the content of your product. A product is the top level of the hierarchy. This is the root node, you have to define the node adding a child in the tree hierarchy using the add () button. Keep in mind that the add button will provide different feature according to the selected node in the BOM. The possible hierarchy is in the following paragraph, check it to be sure you can create the item you want.

A product can be/contain one of these item:

- System: contains sub-systems
- Sub-system: contains equipment
- Equipment: can contain sub-assemblies, COTS, Part count, Hybrid MCM
- Sub assembly: can contain components, keyboard, sub-assemblies, COTS, Part count, Hybrid MCM
- COTS: contains functions
- Part count: contains Parts
- Hybrid MCM: contains Cavities

They are usually classified as Container, since they contain lower-level items. You may have noticed that you cannot create a component or other leaf item (without children) directly under product. You have to create the right hierarchy first, but it is not mandatory to create a System/Sub-system/… you can start directly at Sub-assembly level.

The only one container that can't be a product is the Cavity it must be inside a Hybrid MCM. The cavity can contain components, keyboard, sub-assemblies, COTS and Part count.

The hierarchy is made not only to organize your item but also to define parameters (Profiles and π factors) in a hierarchical way. If one parameter is defined for one item/container of the hierarchy, it is automatically defined for all its children (containers or leaf). Actually, for computations, the behavior of FIDES Lab is the following for each item:

- if a parameter is defined for one item, the value is used for calculations of this item
- if not defined, the software will look for the first parent in the hierarchy with a value for this parameter and use it. It means that modifying a container parameter can have an impact on all its components (expect for the component where the parameter is specifically defined)

### BOM GUI (Add and edit)

When you use the add () button to create a container or a leaf, it will open a configuration window.

Here is an example of Equipment:

All items (whatever the hierarchy level) have a configuration window that contains at least a General panel where you can define:

- Name
- Quantity (if you have several identical items)
- Info 1 (you can take advantage of language files to change this name by a more relevant name)
- Info 2 (as for Info 2, nobody agreed on a name for this field, change it to what you need in your industry)
- Info 3 (you got it :-) )
- Description
- Schematic reference
- Function
- Miscellaneous

#### Container mode

By default, containers are set to Container input mode, meaning you will have to put items inside and that the software will compute the failure rate according to the FIDES Guide. That is why you must define:

- The mission profile applied at this level and below as described in previous chapters.
- The πprocess.
- The πruggedizing.
- The πLF.

These fields are mandatory for computation, but you can leave them blank if you are not sure, you will then define them at on lower-level container. Warning: if you don't fill these fields, and you create a component, you won't be able to validate your component since a component must have this information from one of its parent container.

In the same way as Profile, some π factors can be defined through dedicated forms. Here is the form for πruggedizing:

#### Provided lambda mode

FIDES Lab is designed to compute failure rates according to the components. But in some cases, a part of your product comes from a manufacturer that won't give you the details. You don't know the details, but you will certainly know its failure rate thanks to other means (field experience, manufacturer data, experts …). You can ask FIDES Lab to consider a provided lambda using the Provided lambda button: .

In this case, the Computation panel will be replaced by a very simple field where you can put your provided lambda

Obviously, this lambda will be included in the sum of lambdas of the items at same level to compute the lambda of the parent level.

### Copy / Paste / Delete

When you copy a leaf item (component, part, function, board/keyboard) you have to select the destination container before using the paste button. When you copy a container, it copies the container and everything that is inside. Select another container before using the paste button.

If you delete () a container, it will delete its content.

## Components

This section is related to component editing. Usually, a component is a leaf of the architecture, but some containers are also considered as components, it is the case for Hybrid, Part count, and COST. They will share the common generic configuration window of components.

Warning: a component must be in a sub-assembly. Do not forget to create the sub-assembly before trying to create a component.

### Edition panel

The edition panel of a component is made of 4 parts:

- General
- Computation
- Family Params
- Application Stresses

#### General

There are several fields to put information that will help you to identify your component:

- Name
- Quantity: the number of identical components that will be considered in the computation, usually one but is you have 10 times the same component configured the same way with the same stresses you can put " 10" instead of creating 10 times the same component
- Info 1
- Info 2
- Info 3
- Macro family (among “Electronic components”, “Microwaves and Radiofrequency components”, “Miscellaneous subassemblies”): will narrow the number of family in the “Family” drop-down menu
- Family: it corresponds to the family in Fides guide. The “+” button on the right describe the computation that will be done for this family.
- Designation
- Schematic reference
- Function
- Miscellaneous

As you can see, a lot of fields are available to identify more precisely your component. The 3 fields with a red star are mandatory, the others can stay empty.

#### Computation

The computation panel drives the way FIDES computation are done. The first field is the “Mission profile”, it is mandatory, you have to select a Mission profile that is applied to the component. By default, when you create the component or if you never selected any profile, the component use the profile of it first hierarchical parent that has a profile. We say that the profile is inherited.

If you have no profile, you can add a new one using the add button next to the drop-down menu If a profile is specified, but you don't want a specific profile anymore, you can go back to the “inherited” mode by clinking on the button on the right of the profile.

Then, the Pi part contains 5 factors that are applied to the results. The first 3 Pi fields (Process, Ruggedizing, LF) are related to the container, that is why you can not change the value. The last 2 Pi fields (placement, PM) are related to the component and must be specified. The values are defined by the FIDES guides, if you don't know what value to use, you can use the Pi form buttons. There is a specific GUI for π factors. In all the forms of FIDES Lab, π factors can be specified either with a numerical value or by answering questions in a specific π form. When you click on the π form button (), you must answer each question. The question are the ones of the guide, a description is added to help you to choose the right answer in the Response column. The *weight" column shows you the importance of the answer in the total result.

The inherited-value-mechanism is very important in FIDES Lab since the definition of a computation parameter in a container will impact all its components. In order to know what container defines a computation parameter for a component, you can check the BOM-Tree. Each container is displayed with its name and an additional list of codes that help users to know what is defined in the container.

The code are:

- π_PS: the element has a definition for its πprocess
- π_RG: the element has a definition for its πruggedizing
- π_LF: the element has a definition for its πLF
- MP: the mission profile is defined for this element

Here is an example:

The meaning is the following:

- πprocess is defined for EquipmentA1a and is applied to all its components
- πLF is defined for EquipmentA1a and is applied to ComponentX and ComponentZ. It is not applied to ComponentX since SubAssembly5678 redefines πLF
- πruggedizing is defined for SubAssembly1234 and is applied to ComponentX
- ComponentX must have a Mission Profile since no MP is defined in its parent hierarchy
- ComponentY doesn't need a MP definition since SubAssembly5678 defines a MP
- ComponentZ and ComponentT don't need a MP definition since SubAssembly9999 defines a MP, but ComponentZ has its own MP and won't use the one defines for SubAssembly9999

#### Family Params

Family Params panel contains filed to specify the component, the fields are totally different from one family to another. These parameters are crucial since they impact the reference value that will be used for the computations.

#### Application Stresses

The last panel is used to define the stress applied to the component: during each phase of its life.

If the stress is always the same, you can fill only the “All” line, otherwise you must define the value for each phase of the profile. If you fill each phase, the “All” line won't be used and can be empty.

### Synthesis table

Until the point, all setting is done thanks to dedicated forms. Forms are user-friendly for beginners, but for large models, a table view is more efficient. A table enables quick verification of a lot of data, and modifications are easy to do when you paste from EXCEL. That why FIDES Lab gathers the maximum data in a synthesis table.

Each time you click on an element of the BOM tree, the “Synthesis” table display the detail of this element in one line and all its children (in the hierarchy).

By default, the table cannot be edited, you have to unlock it before. Please refer to Table features section) for more details about table editing.

## Specific components

There are some specific components that have specific features and can also be considered as sub-assembly. These component must be used in a specific way, with specific configuration and they can contain only a few type of children. As any container, you can add children with the add button, but the list of choice will be limited to what is allwed in this specific component

## COTS

As any container there are a general and a computation panel in the edition window. A COTS can contain functions only. When you create a COTS, a Common function is automatically added. If a COTS is selected in the BOM-tree, and if you click on the add button, there when be only the function choice.

The function is in red while it is not configured correctly. Once you entered the mandatory fields, it becomes black.

COTS functions are configured exactly as electric components, with 4 panels (General, computation, Family Params, Application Stress). There are a lot a families for COTS functions, each one can have a different Family params panels (empty most of the time).

## Hybrid and Multi-Chips Components

Hybrid and Multi-Chips (H&MC) components are both containers (containing children) and components (configured with family params and application stress). H&MC have an additional Pi factor, the πprocess HMC.

### Structure

The H&MC component must contain cavities, and a cavity can contain any components, or sub-assembly, or COTS, or Part-count. But a H&MC cannot contain another H&MC.

### Cavity configuration

A cavity has a dedicated Family params panel that enable a precise description of the cavity of a H&MC.

### Components inside cavities

When a component is in a cavity you have access to HMC Macro family that contains families dedicated to H&MC. Otherwise you can configure it as any other component.

## Part-count

Part-count is simply a container that contains parts only. By default, it is empty, but you must add parts inside. A part is a component, so the editing window it the same as other components. The possible families for a part are the one listed in the guide.

## Key board

A keyboard is a component with its family parameters (Operating life, PrPM and Beta), but it is also a container that contains exactly 2 components:

- a board (the PCB)
- a keyboard (the key switches)

Since it must and can only these 2 components, they are automatically created when you create a keyboard

Each automatically created component is in red while it is not configured correctly. Once you entered the mandatory fields, it becomes black.

## Verification

During this process you may have type thousands of numerical value, that why we recommend you to double-check everything. The best way to have a clear view of your setting is the BOM synthesis table but for people who prefer working with XLSX files you can see the Report section to know how to generate a report.

Once everything is checked you can go to the Computation and results section