What is AEC Q100 Q101 Q102 Q104 and AEC Q200 Qualification

This page describes AEC Q100, Q101, Q102, Q104 and AEC Q200 standards used for stress test qualification for automotive grade components and difference between them.

Introduction: The list of documents mentioned define qualification requirements for electrical components. It covers test methods and guidelines. These specifications are useful for harsh automotive environments.

AEC Q100 Q101 Q102 Q104 Q200
Image Courtesy : Automotive Electronics Council (http://www.aecouncil.com/)

The figure depicts components covered by these stress test qualifications by AEC (Automotive Electronics Council) Technical Committee in various documents. AEC is US based which sets these standards for the components to be used for automotive applications.

AEC Q100

• Scope : It covers failure mechanism based stress tests, minimum stress test driven qualification requirements and test conditions for qualifying ICs (Integrated Circuits).
• Purpose : The idea is to determine devices which can pass the defined stress tests. This provides us devices which can offer certain level of quality and reliability in the application.
• The part operating temperature grades are mentioned below.
• AEC Q100 defines four temperature grades from 0 to 3. These ranges are based on operating range of ICs.

Grade Ambient Operating Temperature Range
0 -40oC to +150oC
1 -40oC to +125oC
2 -40oC to +105oC
3 -40oC to +85oC

AEC Q101

• Scope : This document covers qualification requirements for minimum stress test for discrete semiconductors such as diodes, transistors etc.
• Purpose : As mentioned above, the test determines whether the device is capable of providing quality / reliability in the application or not.
• Minimum temperature for discrete semiconductors as defined in the specification is from -40oC to +125oC. For LEDs it is from -40oC to +85oC ambient.

AEC Q102

• Scope : The document covers failure mechanism based stress test qualification for opto-electronic semiconductors in automotive applications.
• Purpose : This test document helps to determine which is expected to provide certain level of reliability and quality in the desired application.

AEC Q103

• Scope : It covers failure mechanism based stress test qualification for MEMS pressure sensor devices. MEMS stands for Micro Electro-Mechanical System.
• Purpose : Based on this stress test results, appropriate MEMS pressure sensor devices are selected which can provide certain level of quality and reliability in the application.
• MEMS pressure sensor technologies considered during the document preparation include Polysilicon surface micro-machined, Single Crystal silicon DRIE, Bulk micro-machined etc.

AEC Q104

• Scope : The document covers stress tests and its qualification requirements based on failure mechanism for Multichip Modules (MCM). It also mentions reference test conditions. Single MCM consists of multiple electronic components in single package enclosure. This document can be applied to MCMs which can be soldered directly to PCB.
• Purpose : Based on pass/fail criteria, multichip modules are chosen which can provide certain level of reliability and quality in the application.

AEC Q200

• Scope : This document covers test qualification for passive components.
• It is the global standard for stress resistance which every passive components should qualify to be used in automotive applications.
• Purpose : The main purpose is to maintain temperature and pressure resistance. It ensures consistency of safety specifications.
• AEC Q200 defines five grades with minimum and maximum temperature range for various passive components.

Grade Temperature Range Component Type Application
0 -50oC to +150oC Flat chip ceramic resistors, X8R ceramic capacitors All automotive
1 -40oC to +125oC Capacitor networks, resistors, inductors, transformers, thermistors, resonators, crystals and varistors, all other ceramic and tantalum capacitors Most Underhood
2 -40oC to +105oC Aluminium electrolytic capacitors Passenger compartment hot spots
3 -40oC to +85oC Film capacitors, Ferrites, R/R-C networks, trimmer capacitors Most passenger compartment
4 0oC to +70oC Non-automotive

References: The documents related to above stress test qualification can be downloaded from aecouncil.com.


Useful Interface types Related Links

UART vs SPI vs I2C   RS232 interface   RS485 interface   RS422 interface   CAN interface   SPI interface   interface types and converters   DigRF interface 

what is difference between

difference between UART vs SPI vs I2C
Difference between 100Base-T1 and 1000Base-T1
CAN vs TTCAN
CAN vs TTP
RS232 vs RS422 vs RS485 interface
LIN vs CAN vs FlexRay vs MOST
Difference between MOST25,MOST50,MOST150


Advantages and Disadvantages of other Sensor Types

Capacitive    Inductive    Photoelectric    Ultrasonic    Infrared    Motion    Biometric    Force    Humidity    Temperature    Light    Barometer    Sound    pH    Soil Moisture   

RF and Wireless Terminologies