Future Meeting Information

Plant Tour and Dinner Presentation
 Thursday, October 21

Program:

5:00 SHARP    Plant Tour at L-3 Communications
         Features PCB surface mount lines at L-3 Communication East’s Manufacturing Facility. 

6:00  Dinner      

6:45  Keystone Chapter Business Meeting

7:00  L- 3 Communications Overview Presentation  by Martha Veselka

   7:15  “Ensuring Compliance to Next Generation of Industry and DoD Specifications and Requirements.”
           Craig Hillman, CEO of DfR Solutions    

8: 00 Event Review and Planning Future Events

Registration:

ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST PRODUCE AT LEAST ONE ID VERIFICATION AS PROOF OF US CITIZENSHIP TO PARTICIPATE!
  
 Acceptable IDs are
1)  E-mail from company HR Dept or school administration stating proof
2) Original passport.  No copies allowed.
3) Original birth certificate.   No copies allowed.

Advance registration is $15.00   On-site is $20.00.  Students complimentary with ID and advance registration.   
Advance registration ends Monday, Oct 18th   Participation is limited so register soon by e-mailing Greg
Chesmar at gregches@aol.com    Please register with the same name that is on your citizenship ID.

   L-3 Communications, Communication Systems - East
   1 Federal Street   Camden, NJ 08103
Camden NJ 08103   (856) 338 3445
For Directions and Parking Info click here -  http://www.l-3com.com/cs-east/ie_locmap.shtml
Park in the Visitor’s lot, 2nd gate on the left, once you get in the main entrance.  There are two buildings on-site.  The tour will be in the large 2 story manufacturing building to the east, away from the Delaware river. 

 

Presentation Abstract:

The U.S. Dept. of Defense (DoD) has initiated multiple efforts to revitalize reliability in defense systems acquisition and development.  One of these projects involves updating MIL-HDBK-217 Rev F, the often imitated and frequently criticized reliability prediction bible for electronics equipment.  The current version of this document defines a 1960 era actuarial approach where field failure data is fitted to statistical, empirical models to create tables of historical random failure rates for generic families of electronic component in various usage stress conditions.  The tables are then used in a part counting technique to create a Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) estimate that can be further de-rated based on thermal stress conditions.  It has not been updated since 1995 partly because this approach does not address infant mortality quality and end of life wear our related failure issues. 

While there is still support for the actuarial approach in some quarters, the MIL-HDBK-217 revision team workgroup has also proposed modernizing reliability prediction techniques to include and standardize ways of using modern Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) analysis tools with science-based Physics of Failure (PoF) reliability modeling, simulations and probabilistic mechanics techniques.  The CAE-PoF approach is based in the analysis of loads and stresses in an application and evaluating the ability of materials in a device to endure them from a strength and mechanics of material point of view.  This approach has been proven to resolve many of the current limitations of traditional actuarial based reliability prediction methods.   

The PoF approach used a virtual Computer Aided Design (CAD) representation of a new device to perform a virtual durability simulation.  The result is a detailed reliability assessment of which items (components, material and features) in the new design are the most likely to fail, to which failure mechanisms, their individual time to first failure and their rate of failure growth there after.  The interactive use of this analysis capability as the design is being created enables designers to identify and design out susceptibility to failure mechanisms by making design, material and manufacturing choices that minimize failure opportunities.  This approach can be considered a form of Virtual Reliability Growth that produces reliability optimized, robust designs. 

This proposal has been submitted and is under going review.  This paper provides a brief overview of PoF methods and reviews the concepts on how they can be applied to update and modernize the reliability prediction techniques in MIL-HDBK-217 from the point of view of a member of the 217 revision team.   

Presenter Bio:  
Dr. Craig Hillman is the Chief Executive Officer of DfR Solutions. His specialties include best practices in Design for Reliability (DfR), strategies for transitioning to Pb-free, supplier qualification (commodity and engineered products), passive component technology (capacitors, resistors, etc.), and printed board failure mechanisms. During his years of experience in electronic packaging, Dr. Hillman has performed or directly supervised over 500 projects for over 150 companies in the area of quality and reliability of electronic components, products, and systems. Before forming DfR Solutions in 2004, he was the Director of Laboratory Services for CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Center.  Dr. Hillman has over 40 publications and has presented on a wide variety of reliability issues to over 200 companies and organizations. He holds a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and Public Policy and a PhD from University of California – Santa Barbara in Materials Science and was awarded a research fellowship at Cambridge University in England