The use of Commercial-Of-The-Shelf (COTS) electronic components in the high energy accelerator context requires characterizing their response to radiation effects. Such a characterization is typically performed using one or several test beams which only cover a small subset of the particle species and energies present in the operational environment. In this seminar, we will describe the standard approach used to derive operational failure rates from test results, focusing on the effect of the strong energy dependency introduced by the presence of high-Z materials near the component's sensitive region.