In an accelerated failure test, components are operated under extreme conditions so that a substantial number will fail in a rather short time. In such a test involving two types of microchips, 580 chips manufactured by an existing process were tested, and 125 of them failed. Then, 780 chips manufactured by a new process were tested, and 130 of them failed. Find a 90% confidence interval for the difference between the proportions of failures for chips manufactured by the two processes. (Round the final answers to four decimal places.) The 90% confidence interval is

Answer :

Answer:

The 90% confidence interval is (0.0131, 0.0845).

Step-by-step explanation:

Before finding the confidence interval, we need to understand the central limit theorem and subtraction of normal variables.

Central Limit Theorem

The Central Limit Theorem establishes that, for a normally distributed random variable X, with mean [tex]\mu[/tex] and standard deviation [tex]\sigma[/tex], the sampling distribution of the sample means with size n can be approximated to a normal distribution with mean [tex]\mu[/tex] and standard deviation [tex]s = \frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}[/tex].

For a skewed variable, the Central Limit Theorem can also be applied, as long as n is at least 30.

For a proportion p in a sample of size n, the sampling distribution of the sample proportion will be approximately normal with mean [tex]\mu = p[/tex] and standard deviation [tex]s = \sqrt{\frac{p(1-p)}{n}}[/tex]

Subtraction between normal variables:

When two normal variables are subtracted, the mean is the difference of the means, while the standard deviation is the square root of the sum of the variances.

Old process:

125 out of 580, so:

[tex]p_O = \frac{125}{580} = 0.2155[/tex]

[tex]s_O = \sqrt{\frac{0.2155*0.7845}{580}} = 0.0171[/tex]

New process:

130 out of 780. So

[tex]p_N = \frac{130}{780} = 0.1667[/tex]

[tex]s_N = \sqrt{\frac{0.1667*0.8333}{780}} = 0.0133[/tex]

Distribution of the difference:

[tex]p = p_O - p_N = 0.2155 - 0.1667 = 0.0488[/tex]

[tex]s = \sqrt{s_O^2+s_N^2} = \sqrt{0.0171^2 + 0.0133^2} = 0.0217[/tex]

Confidence interval:

[tex]p \pm zs[/tex]

In which

z is the z-score that has a p-value of [tex]1 - \frac{\alpha}{2}[/tex].

90% confidence level

So [tex]\alpha = 0.1[/tex], z is the value of Z that has a p-value of [tex]1 - \frac{0.1}{2} = 0.95[/tex], so [tex]Z = 1.645[/tex].

The lower bound of the interval is:

[tex]p - zs = 0.0488 - 1.645*0.0217 = 0.0131[/tex]

The upper bound of the interval is:

[tex]p + zs = 0.0488 + 1.645*0.0217 = 0.0845[/tex]

The 90% confidence interval is (0.0131, 0.0845).

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