Techniques disclosed herein stress a dielectric layer until a pre-catastrophic, stress induced leakage current (SILC) condition is detected. When the pre-catastrophic SILC condition is detected, the stress is removed to prevent catastrophic failure of the dielectric and its associated device. Because these techniques prevent catastrophic failure of the dielectric layer, engineers can carry out physical failure analysis of the device, which is now known to have some type of defect due to detection of the pre-catastrophic SILC condition. In this way, the techniques disclosed herein allow engineers to more quickly determine an underlying cause of a defect so that yields can be kept at optimal levels.