Source : WordNet®

infant mortality
     n : the death rate during the first year of life [syn: {infant
         deathrate}, {infant mortality rate}]

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

infant mortality
     
         It is common lore among hackers (and in the
        electronics industry at large) that the chances of sudden
        hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time
        since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at
        which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and
        thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the
        machine to start going senile).  Up to half of all chip and
        wire failures happen within a new system's first few weeks;
        such failures are often referred to as "infant mortality"
        problems (or, occasionally, as "sudden infant death
        syndrome").
     
        See {bathtub curve}, {burn-in period}.
     
        [{Jargon File}]
     
        (1995-03-20)