From the perspective of microelectronic chip reliability, the goal of understanding stress‐induced voiding is to be able to evaluate the impact of void formation on chip lifetime. This requires a reliable acceleration factor for chip failure which relates failure under accelerated stress conditions to reliability under use conditions. However, a well‐defined acceleration factor has not been available for stress‐induced voiding, as is used, for example, for electromigration. Without such an acceleration factor, the effectiveness of any set of stress conditions for revealing potential wearout risks is not clear. A suitable acceleration factor must be consistent with a physically descriptive model which contains all of the necessary variables. Part of the difficulty in producing a reliable acceleration factor for chip failure has been the sheer number of variables upon which failure and void growth depend. These include mechanical and thermal properties of passivation materials, intrinsic stress in the passivation, metallization microstructure, metal composition, void nucleation density and distribution, void growth rate, and void shape, among others. Predicting chip failure due to voiding therefore depends upon understanding the contribution of each of these variables. This paper describes an expression for void growth which includes most of the relevant variables. Predictions are compared with data.