Any approach to qualification of advanced technologies during product development must include an assessment of variation expected in product life over the life cycle. However, testing product design options in development, to approach an optimal design, is costly and time consuming. Hence, simulation of product life distributions for virtual qualification, can be a valuable tool to evaluate and qualify design options. This paper presents a physics of failure based approach to virtual qualification of advanced area array assemblies, against solder fatigue failure. The approach applies Monte Carlo Simulation to evaluate solder joint fatigue life distributions, given material property variations and manufacturing capabilities. Preliminary results using the simple Engelmaier Model as the basis of simulations are presented. Simulation results are compared to data accumulated from two test environments and two BGA product types. The results reveal some of the limitations of the Engelmaier Model as a basis for simulation. They also show the potential of this approach to virtual qualification for design and manufacturing capability assessment in development.