RCA your HALT!

Highly accelerated life testing (HALT) can be a useful activity, especially in that period between design and pilot production. However, the true value of HALT is only AFTER the failures during testing are effectively root-caused and decisions on corrective action implemented. And who is the only company that can perform HALT and RCA in same place? DfR Solutions! For more information, please contact Cheryl Tulkoff, ctulkoff@dfrsolutions.com.

The US is Going Green!

The greening of the electronics marketplace continues. This time, however, it's the US Government. A joint EPA, GSA, and Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) taskforce is determining how government can help advance efforts to green the design, manufacture, procurement, and use of electronics. Want a vote? Send this survey in ASAP. For more information on staying ahead of environmental legislation, please contact Randy Schueller, rschueller@dfrsolutions.com.

Reballing Ball Grid Arrays (BGAs)

With electronics components decisively shifted to Pb-free, it is becoming difficult to buy components with tin-lead (SnPb) solder balls. The only three responses? Custom order (only if you want >1 million), adapt (seen any Pb-free planes?) or post process (reball). This paper presents the results from a comprehensive study on the ability of reballed BGAs to survive severe environments. Please contact Joelle Arnold, jarnold@dfrsolutions.com, for more information.

How to Design for Thermal Cycling - iMAPS webinar

Nathan Blattau will be presenting a broad-based iMAPS "How to Design for Thermal Cycling" webinar on the challenges of designing for an environment with temperature changes. Whether your product is military, industrial, or part of the new 'Free Air Cooling' trend, this insightful presentation will identify the mechanisms affiliated with thermal cycling and how to predict performance during product design. To register, please contact Brian Schieman, bschieman@imaps.org. For more information, contact Nathan Blattau, nblattau@dfrsolutions.com.

This is Not a Test

How can you keep reliability issues off of your to-do list? Change your process. There is typically too much testing of products after build. Reliability improvement and growth tests (test, analyze, and fix) concept have had limited success, but added significant cost and time. The new paradigm must be to shift the focus during engineering and manufacturing development (E&MD) from 'pass test' to 'good design' prior to completion of technology development. For more information, please contact Walt Tomczykowski, wtomczykowski@dfrsolutions.com.

Design it Better, Launch it Faster, and Satisfy your Customers

After years of development and success among early adopters, DfR Solutions is launching version 2.0 of our revolutionary electronic design analysis software. This unrivaled product provides the most comprehensive solution available for Physics of Failure (PoF) based analysis of electronic designs. The software's intuitive commands and ease of use invites usage among a broad range of engineers and managers, where rapid results provide almost immediate feedback on product designs and their performance in the hands of the customer.

To learn more about a tool that will change the way you design, please join us for our introductory webinar on March 31, 2011. Registration is now open. For more information, please contact Ed Dodd, edodd@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR Presents at the Missile Defense Agency PMAP Meeting in Huntsville, AL: March 22

Greg Caswell will be making a presentation on "BGA Reballing from Pb-Free to Sn-Pb Metallurgy" at the MDA's Parts, Materials and Processes Mission Assurance Plan (PMAP) conference. If you and your associates are interested in an onsite visit and/or presentation while Greg is in the area, contact June Caswell, jcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR Solutions in San Jose & San Francisco, CA: March 21-24

Gregg Kittlesen and Ed Dodd will be visiting companies in the San Francisco, California, area in mid-March to present on a number of topics, including design for reliability, component qualification, and root-cause analysis. If you and your associates are interested in an onsite visit and/or presentation, contact June Caswell, jcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR Solutions in Manila, The Philippines: March 21-25

Craig Hillman will be visiting companies in the Manila area from March 21st through March 25th. If you and your associates are interested in an onsite visit and/or presentation, please contact June Caswell, jcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR's Walt Tomczykowski appears in Crime Inc: Counterfeit Goods on Sunday, Mar. 20th

The one hour CNBC show Crime Inc: Counterfeit Goods will air again on Sunday March 20^th at 8PM ET. DfR's Walt Tomczykowski appears on screen twice during the defense and aerospace segment between 20 and 30 past the hour.

Crime Inc: Counterfeit Goods

Fake handbags, watches, shoes and perfumes. The business of Counterfeit Goods is the largest underground industry in the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars are generated while sapping the economy, putting lives in jeopardy, and funding organized crime in the process.

CNBC’s "Crime Inc.: Counterfeit Goods," takes viewers on a rare look inside a global crime spree, where the goods are produced and confiscated in a world of high-risk and high-reward.

Host Carl Quintanilla takes you on raids with the LAPD anti-counterfeiting unit, inspections at ports, and back-room factories where counterfeits are produced. Meet a company whose whole brand was copied, and the story of a defense contractor who counterfeit defense parts that found their way into weapons depots in Iraq.

At around 7% of all global trade, Counterfeit Goods are a big business with low overhead. It makes too much money to go away any time soon.

DfR Presenting at the Warranty Chain Management Conference on March 15th in San Diego, CA.

DfR's Fred Schenkelberg is co-presenting a workshop on "Taming Warranty Costs At New Product Release And Product Launch" at the International Conference on Warranty Chain Management in San Diego on Tuesday, March 15th.

While Fred is in San Diego, he will be meeting with area companies. If you'd like to schedule an onsite visit, please contact Fred Schenkelberg, fschenkelberg@dfrsolutions.com or June Caswell, jcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR Assessment of Integrated Circuit Wearout Published by IEEE

Recognizing DfR's ground-breaking tool for the prediction of integrated circuit reliability and wearout, collaboratively developed with AVSI and Professor Yosef Bernstein, IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement magazine has published Ed Wyrwas' article, "Quantitatively Analyzing the Performance of Integrated Circuits and Their Reliability." For more information on this topic and how your future designs will require this type of analysis, contact Ed Wyrwas, ewyrwas@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR's Google Calendar

Look for DfR at upcoming events, conferences, webinars, and sales visits that may be in your area on our new link to Google Calendar. For more information on a specific activity, please contact June Caswell, jcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR Launches the Shock and Vibration Partnership

With companies representing a range of industries (medical, military, avionics, solder), DfR Solutions launched the Shock and Vibration Partnership on January 21, 2011. This activity will use a combination of simulation and testing to identify the most effective vibration and shock mitigations. Solutions such as underfill, staking compounds, dummy ball, solder alloy, and corner slots will be benchmarked in regard to cost, manufacturability, effect on thermal cycling, and ability to mitigate shock and vibration damage. If you would like more information on this activity, contact Joelle Arnold, jarnold@dfrsolutions.com.

Can You Predict the Future? Try Sherlock: Intelligence Accelerated!

SAVE THE DATE: March 31, 2011, 1-2 pm EDT Learn how you can predict product failure earlier in the design process allowing you to improve overall product performance. Attend this free webinar presented by DfR Solutions, a leading provider of quality, reliability, and durability research & services for the electronics industry, and learn about Sherlock, an innovative new Automated Design Analysis tool that will help you: • Design better, more reliable products • Speed time to market • Enhance customer satisfaction and brand loyalty • Improve profitability Don't miss out! Early Bird Registration here. To learn more about Sherlock, the new software tool, click here. To learn more about DfR Solutions, click here.

DfR to Present at MEPTEC's "The Heat is On" Symposium

In recognition of our understanding of the tradeoffs between temperature and reliability for multiple technologies (hard drives, fans, integrated circuits, etc.), DfR Solutions has been invited to present "Reliability of Electronic Systems in Telecom Environments" at MEPTEC's "The Heat is On" Symposium held on March 21st in San Jose, CA. The Symposium is part of the Electronics Thermal Week. For more information, please contact Greg Caswell, gcaswell@dfrsolutions.com.

How to Choose a Reliable Package on Package (PoP)

One company's solution can be another company's nightmare, especially in component packaging. A desire to maximize functionality and fit space constraints can result in something like this monster (25mm x 50mm) package on package (PoP). While likely satisfying a market need, this component will be challenging from a manufacturability and reliability perspective. For example, the package weight will likely reduce solder ball height to less than half the diameter, increasing the likelihood of pad cratering and thermo-mechanical fatigue. If you are looking for real solutions to PoP challenges, contact Craig Hillman, chillman@dfrsolutions.com.

DfR's Walt Tomczykowski will be in Boston, MA March 8th and 9th

Walt Tomczykowski, Vice President at DfR Solutions, will be in Boston, MA Tuesday, March 8th and Wednesday, March 9th.

While Walt is in the area, he will be available to visit interested companies to make presentations on a variety of topics including system level reliability and availability analysis, root cause analysis, corrective action, test and evaluation (including environmental testing), reliability improvement, supply chain management (proactive obsolescence management), life cycle cost analysis, life cycle management, readiness based spares, supplier benchmarking, counterfeit parts mitigation and our brand new Expert Reliability Analysis Software. He would be more than happy to include your company in his visit.

As you may know, DfR Solutions can lend a guiding hand regarding quality, reliability, and durability (QRD) issues. DfR not only helps you solve your problems — we can prevent them from happening in the first place! Find out how to reduce development costs and time to market while creating a more reliable product.

If you are interested in arranging an onsite complimentary presentation, please contact June Caswell at jcaswell@dftsolutions.com. If you would like more information regarding DfR’s services, please contact Walt at wtomczykowski@dfrsolutions.com.

Manufacturability & Reliability Challenges with QFN: Mar. 10 ASQ RS Webinar

ASQ Reliability Society Webinar Series

Thursday March 10, 2011 noon-1:00 pm EDT

DESCRIPTION: The quad flat pack no lead or quad flat non-leaded (QFN) is one of the fastest growing package types in the electronics industry today. While the advantages of QFNs are well documented, concerns arise with its reliability and manufacturability. Acceptance of this package, especially in long-life, severe-environment, high-reliability applications, is currently limited. One of the most common drivers for reliability failures is inappropriate adoption of new technologies, such as the case with QFN. In this presentation, we will review and discuss QFN related reliability concerns and challenges, and propose Physics-of-Failure (PoF) based approaches to allow the confident introduction of QFN components into electronics products.

PRESENTER: Cheryl Tulkoff has over 15 years of experience in electronics manufacturing with an emphasis on failure analysis and reliability. She has worked throughout the electronics manufacturing life cycle beginning with semiconductor fabrication processes, into printed circuit board fabrication and assembly, through functional and reliability testing, and culminating in the analysis and evaluation of field returns. She has also managed no clean and RoHS-compliant conversion programs and has developed and managed comprehensive reliability programs.

Cheryl earned her Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Georgia Tech. She is a published author, experienced public speaker and trainer and a Senior member of both ASQ and IEEE. She holds leadership positions in the IEEE Central Texas Chapter, IEEE WIE (Women In Engineering), and IEEE ASTR (Accelerated Stress Testing and Reliability) sections. She chaired the annual IEEE ASTR workshop for four years and is also an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer.

She has a strong passion for pre-college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) outreach and volunteers with several organizations that specialize in encouraging pre-college students to pursue careers in these fields.

To Register click here