Effective power interruption testing – how best to fail

From dropped batteries to system failures, embedded designs need solid power interruption testing. Reliability demands on embedded products have increased proportionately to the growth of the desired lifetime of the products. To achieve the most comprehensive reliability test in the least time, stress testing must utilize I/O at the point of power interruption.

This paper surveys the failure points of file systems and flash media, with a discussion of the most effective strategies for ensuring that test design accounts for the variety of real-world failures that can occur. Validation of data and hardware requirements will also be discussed.