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Knowledge Base/Core Skills of an Automotive Quality Engineer: From SQE to DRE
Automotive Quality6 min read

Core Skills of an Automotive Quality Engineer: From SQE to DRE

This article delves into the critical role of automotive quality engineers, explaining how they investigate complex issues when metrics like DPMO for automotive chips escalate dramatically. It highlights that quality engineering in the stringent automotive sector goes beyond simple checklists, emphasizing the dual responsibilities of proactive prevention (SQE) and reactive analysis (DRE) to ensure product reliability.

That day the Cpk report came out, the room fell silent for three seconds; we knew there was a problem again.

That weekend, I was about to leave work when my phone suddenly rang. The production line reported that a batch of automotive MCUs tested with a DPMO skyrocketing to 6210 ppm, more than ten times higher than the usual 500 ppm! The client was already furious, asking if we had used some "inferior materials." In the meeting room, everyone's faces turned grim because this batch of goods had already been shipped, and now, finding the problem was like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is when your skills as an automotive quality engineer are put to the test; every link, from the supplier side to the design side, has to be dug into.

Where is the problem? "Quality," in essence, means "responsibility."

To be honest, many newcomers, when they first join, think a quality engineer just takes a checklist and ticks boxes. Wrong! Absolutely wrong! The automotive industry's demands for quality are completely on a different level compared to consumer electronics. A car has tens of thousands of parts, each with a potential failure risk. How do you ensure these assembled parts won't suddenly cause the car to stall on the highway?

Frankly speaking, a quality engineer needs to handle two things:

  1. Proactive prevention (SQE - Supplier Quality Engineer): Ensuring the materials supplied by the vendor are good.
  2. Reactive analysis (DRE - Design Reliability Engineer): If a problem occurs, you must be able to identify whether it's due to poor design, incorrect materials, or process deviation.

So the key is, you don't just look at the data, but rather the risks "behind" the data.

How is it actually done? From supplier to design, stripping away layers.

Taking the example of the skyrocketing DPMO just mentioned, we typically investigate as follows:

  1. Check the supplier's Cpk report: Let's say for that batch of MCUs, the supplier's wafer process Cpk report was 1.08. Seeing this number, you should immediately be alert. Cpk 1.33 is considered a basic requirement, 1.67 is better, and 1.08 is practically on the verge of passing. With even a slight process drift, the yield will drop immediately. So the key is not just to accept the supplier's claim that there's no problem; you need to assess the risk represented by this number yourself.
  2. Trace the batch: When was this batch of goods with DPMO 6210 produced? Which batch of wafers was used? Which machine was used for back-end packaging and testing? Every step must be traceable. We found that the problematic batch of MCUs was produced right after a new packaging material was introduced.
  3. DRE steps in: At this point, the DRE needs to collaborate with the design team to verify if the new packaging material impacts the MCU's reliability. They might conduct high-temperature and high-humidity tests, thermal cycling tests, or even failure analysis (FA) to see if excessive stress from the new material is causing internal connections within the chip to break.

In other words, SQE first guards the source (upstream), while DRE ensures the product operates reliably under various harsh conditions at the design and process ends. Both are indispensable.

The most common pitfall: Numbers can deceive, a beautifully written report is useless.

The most outrageous case I've seen was when chips supplied by a client would occasionally crash after running in a car for a while. The supplier tested for a long time; Cpk reports and yield reports all indicated no issues, and the data looked perfectly fine. As a result, our DRE team took them back to perform "accelerated life tests," simulating thousands of hours of car operation under extreme conditions like high/low temperatures and vibration. Only then did we discover that the chip's solder joints would develop micro-cracks at specific temperatures, leading to poor contact.

So the key is, don't be fooled by reports. Especially in the automotive industry, you must always assume the "worst-case scenario" will happen. A supplier's test environment is usually ideal, but when your car runs on the road, it will be exposed to extremely high temperatures on asphalt in summer and encounter ice in winter. These extreme values must all be taken into consideration.

One thing you can do today

Go check for the product you are responsible for, right now: What is the Cpk value of its most critical component from the supplier?

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