At the lowest level the Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) is an LED with mirrors. Techically it should last longer than an LED. These devices drive all the fiber-optic telecommunications in the world. The Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) array is similarly just a fancy bunch of diodes. Ok, a very fancy bunch, but the technology is well understood. The controller between them is one of the most widly deployed MCUs. That should not be a problem.
The silicon is not the issue. But this chip has an internal structure. The lens and the cap are attached with glue. In theory the glue should last forever, but with enough heating and cooling over 30 years it might fail.
We run a lot of industry standard tests on our part, and the statistics say it will run for thousands of years. But the truth is we got NO failures in all the accelarated testing we did, and statistics don't work well when you get no failures.
That being said, Temperature and over-voltage are the two things that can kill the sensor. Keep those in range and our testing says it should last for well over 30 years.
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