whisker: a standalone construct

In electronics manufacturing a whisker is a thin, electrically conductive filament that grows spontaneously from a plated metal surface, most notoriously from pure tin finishes, driven by internal compressive stress rather than any applied field, and long enough to bridge adjacent conductors and cause intermittent or catastrophic short circuits. Galyon's Annotated tin whisker bibliography and anthology surveys decades of observations, failures, and growth models for the phenomenon. The referent is a stress-relief crystal filament on a solder or plating surface, a reliability hazard measured in micrometres of length and growth rate, unrelated to a statistical plot element or a mammal's feeler.[1]

Unit

The length and growth rate of a conductive filament from a plated surface

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Characterised by filament length and density under microscopy, growth rate over time, and mitigation such as conformal coating or added underlayers