The Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) is extremely pleased to announce that it is now the world’s largest electronic products and systems research center focused on electronics reliability. With our new laboratory facilities and support from over 100 corporate sponsors, this year’s revenues top $7M. We are now conducting state-of-the-art research on electronic devices, electronics packaging, product reliability and systems risk assessment; providing the most sophisticated and practical failure analysis to companies; teaching classes to industry on electronic products development and reliability; and providing guidance to companies on a host of life-cycle engineering tasks. We are also committed to providing cost-effective and practical solutions to companies.

CALCE is recognized as a founder and driving force behind the development and implementation of physics-of-failure (PoF) approaches to reliability, as well as a world leader in accelerated testing, electronic parts selection and management, and supply-chain management. CALCE is at the forefront of international standards development for critical electronic systems having chaired the development of several reliability and part selection standards. CALCE is staffed by over 100 faculty, staff and students, and in 1999 became the first academic research facility in the world to be ISO 9001 certified. Collectively, CALCE researchers have authored over 35 internationally acclaimed textbooks and well over 1000 research publications relevant to electronics reliability. Over the last 15 years, CALCE has invested over $75 million in developing methodologies, models, and tools that address the design, manufacture, analysis, and management of electronic systems.

The mission of CALCE is to develop scientifically based innovative methodologies that decrease life cycle risks for the next generation of electronic products and systems, and to provide an educational and technology transfer infrastructure for their rapid dissemination and utilization.

As we move into the summer of 2008, the electronics industry is seeing continued growth, but we have been observing an increasing number of reliability concerns. For example, field failures of ceramic capacitors are occurring with greater frequency and are traceable to a number of manufacturing processes, handling, and circuit board assembly issues. To solve such problems, CALCE Test Services and Failure Analysis Laboratory continues to provide outstanding services, including proprietary design reviews, reliability assessments, material characterization, and failure analysis support. In the first half of 2007, the lab has conducted over sixty failure analysis services for companies and provides alerts for two Fortune 500 companies as well.

The CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium is conducting research on a host of company-sponsored subjects, including lead-free electronics, design-for-reliability (DfR) methods, and supply chain risk assessment. One particular concern is that CALCE has been observing a rapid influx of counterfeit parts into the supply chains of many companies. CALCE has been developing techniques to help manufacturers identify and combat counterfeiting. CALCE will hold an International Symposium on Avoiding, Detecting, and Preventing Counterfeiting in November to enable dissemination of the latest knowledge in this area.

The CALCE Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Consortium has now grown to 14 companies. Participation in the PHMC places members at the forefront of prognostics and health management. CALCE’s accomplishments in this area include (1) mapping of sensor technologies with stress and damage models to assess real-time life consumption monitoring (LCM) of electronic systems, (2) demonstrating the LCM methodology on an electronic board operated in an automotive under-hood environment, (3) evaluating diagnostic built-in-test (BIT) software-firmware systems for fault identification and isolation that incorporate error detection and correction circuits, and self-checking and self-verification circuits, (4) integrating in-situ semiconductor prognostic monitors consisting of pre-calibrated cells (circuits) to predict remaining life considering semiconductor defects and failure mechanisms, (5) developing software modules (data collection, simplification and damage accumulation and remaining life estimation) for environment and usage data collection that enable PHM, (6) assessing health using physical inspection, accelerated testing and physics-of-failure analysis combined, and (7) developing models and tools for optimizing maintenance planning and assessing ROI using PHM.

I invite you to become an active participant with CALCE and make use of our expertise and numerous resources. If you are interested in our research and analysis, visit us in person or visit us on the web at www.calce.umd.edu. I look forward to working with you.

If your organization is interested in utilizing CALCE expertise and resources, you can contact me directly at pecht@calce.umd.edu.

Michael Pecht
Chair Professor and Director