What's New - April 2010

• CALCE at 2010 IPC APEX EXPO in Las Vegas
• Failure Analysis Short Course – April 20-23
• Upcoming Webinars - April and May
• CALCE Welcomes Industry Leaders at Spring EPSC Technical Review and SARA Workshop
• Cholmin Choi Wins Best Research Assistant Presentation Award at EPSC Spring Review
• CALCE PHM Group Shares Newest Research at Spring PHM Technical Review

CALCE at 2010 IPC APEX EXPO in Las Vegas
CALCE investigators will present their latest research at the 2010 IPC APEX EXPO, which will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, NV, from April 6-8. The APEX EXPO is an annual event hosted by industry leader IPC where members of the electronics interconnect industry gather to discuss and learn about advanced and emerging technologies in printed board design and manufacturing and electronics assembly and testing.

CALCE investigators will present a number of papers and posters on their latest work in printed circuit boards, planar capacitors, and detection of solder joint failure. Topics covered by CALCE investigators will include:

• Impact of Moisture Content on Printed Circuit Board Laminate Thermal Properties
  
• Effects of Solder Mask on Electrochemical Migration of Tin-Lead and Lead-Free Boards
• Comparative Analysis of Solder Joint Degradation Using RF Impedance and Event Detectors
• Effect of Environmental Stress and Bias Conditions on Reliability of Embedded Planar Capacitors
• Reliability Evaluation of One-Pass and Two-Pass Techniques of Assembly for Package-on-Packages under Torsion Loads

For more information on CALCE’s activities at the IPC APEX EXPO, contact Bhanu Sood at bpsood@calce.umd.edu, or visit the information page here.

Failure Analysis Short Course – April 20-23
CALCE Test Services will hold a four-day short course on Failure Analysis techniques at the CALCE Failure Analysis Lab on the University of Maryland College Park campus from April 20-23. Sponsored by CALCE and Buehler (the world's premier manufacturer of scientific equipment and supplies for use in materials analysis), this intensive short course will offer attendees the opportunity to participate in lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on laboratory tasks relating to failure analysis methodology, specimen preparation, and materials analysis techniques for electronics assemblies, components, and devices.

Lecture topics will include:

• physics-of-failure root cause analysis,
• guidelines for selection of analytical tools, and
• best practices on operating procedures of laboratory techniques.

The laboratory portion will include demonstrations of non-destructive and destructive analysis techniques, as well as hands-on sample preparation using metallographic techniques on the latest failure analysis equipment from Buehler. Attendees may submit samples for use in laboratory and hands-on demonstrations, up to three weeks before the course.

Registration for the course is $2500 USD per individual attendee. For more information on the short course, contact Bhanu Sood at bpsood@calce.umd.edu, or visit the information page here.

Upcoming Webinars
April - Embedded Passives 
April 13 2010, 11:00 am US EDT
The CALCE webinar series will resume on April 13 with a seminar on Embedded Passives presented by Dr. Michael Azarian. In this seminar, Dr. Azarian will address product design, applications, and reliability of embedded passives for printed circuit boards. Registration for the webinar is free for EPSC members, and $300 USD for non-members. For more information on the April webinar, or to register, contact Dr. Michael Osterman at osterman@calce.umd.edu, or visit the webinar information page here.

May - Free-cooling of Telecommunication Base Stations
May 18, 2009 11:00 am US EDT
On May 18, the CALCE webinar series will continue with a web seminar on Free Air Cooling of Telecommunication Base Stations presented by Dr. Diganta Das. The seminar will provide information on cooling requirements for telecommunications base stations and the implication of using low energy cooling solutions on electronics reliability. Registration for the webinar is free to EPSC members, and $300 USD for non-members. For more information on the May webinar, or to register, contact Dr. Michael Osterman at osterman@calce.umd.edu, or visit the webinar information page here.

CALCE Welcomes Industry Leaders at Spring EPSC Technical Review and SARA Workshop
Continuing its efforts to provide the electronics industry with the most current and relevant research on life cycle engineering, CALCE holds semi-annual technical reviews to apprise Electronics Products and Systems Consortium members on CALCE research and project development.

This spring, CALCE held the first of its semi-annual technical review meetings for 2010 at the University of Maryland campus in College Park, MD, from March 16-17. With over forty members of the electronics industry and research communities in attendance, and over twenty attending remotely, CALCE investigators presented the latest updates on their sponsored research projects. This year’s Spring Technical Review included updates on a number of CALCE FY10 projects, with a special focus on MEMS, energy storage technologies, tin whisker risk mitigation, and physics-of-failure-based reliability assessment. In addition to attending presentations, attendees participated in tours of the CALCE laboratories, demonstrations, and forums on the future of CALCE research. Presentations from the meeting are available to CALCE EPSC members only, and can be found at
http://www.calce.umd.edu/consortium/meetings/2010/spring/index.html.

In conjunction with the Spring Technical Review, CALCE hosted its annual Simulation Assisted Reliability Assessment (SARA®) workshop at the University of Maryland, College Park campus on March 15. SARA® is a CALCE methodology that employs physics-of-failure-based principles and software to assess the life cycle reliability of electronic parts and printed wiring assemblies based on materials, geometry, environmental conditions, and operating characteristics.

Presenting to attendees from across the electronics industry, Dr. Michael Osterman, Director of CALCE’s Electronics Products and System Consortium, offered a tutorial on the application of SARA software and introduced the latest developments in calcePWA, calceFAST, and CalceWhiskerRiskCalculator software. CALCE EPSC members may download the current versions of the SARA software and find tutorials on their use and application at http://www.calce.umd.edu/software/
(A CALCE EPSC web account is required for download access.)

For more information on the Spring meeting and the SARA workshop, or if you wish to attend future CALCE Technical Review meetings, please contact Dr. Michael Osterman at osterman@calce.umd.edu.

Cholmin Choi Wins Best Research Assistant Presentation Award at EPSC Spring Review
Each year, CALCE celebrates the achievements of exemplary research assistants at its semi-annual technical reviews. The Best Research Assistant Presentation Award honors the research assistant who demonstrates poise, confidence, and sound technical knowledge when presenting their research on sponsored projects. Awards are based on compiled totals of votes supplied by Technical Review attendees.

The winner of the Best Research Assistant Presentation Award was Cholmin Choi for his presentation titled “Physics-of-Failure (PoF) Qualification of Complex Electronic Systems.” Cholmin Choi is a research assistant working under the direction of Prof. Abhijit Dasgupta. For more information on Chlomin's work with Dr. Dasgupta, contact Dr. Dasgupta at dasgupta@calce.umd.edu.

CALCE PHM Group Shares Newest Research at Spring PHM Technical Review
Through research and project development, the CALCE Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Group demonstrates the value of prognostics and health management to the electronics industry. The CALCE PHM group continued its mission to educate the electronics community on the value of PHM at its 2010 Spring Technical Review meeting, held on March 18 at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Attended by PHM Consortium members from various segments of the electronics industry, the PHM Spring Technical Review offered attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest developments in the PHM group’s research. CALCE PHM investigators and students gave over a dozen presentations on a range of topics relating to the application of physics-of-failure, data-driven, and fusion approaches to prognostics.

One day prior to the meeting, on March 17, the PHM group hosted a one-day workshop on data-driven prognostics techniques, which provided attendees with insight into the most effective data-driven techniques for prognostics and health management, particularly in the area of prognostics capability for mission-critical systems. For more information on the Spring meeting, or if you wish to attend future CALCE PHM Technical Review meetings or tutorials, contact Sony Mathew at sonym@calce.umd.edu.