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.)