Reliability Society · ©2001 IEEE. Permission to copy without fee all or part of any material without a copyright notice is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed

Reliability SocietyN E W S L E T T E R

Vol. 47, No. 1, January 2001 (ISSN 1059-8642)

http://www.ieee.org/society/rs

President’s Message

PerspectivesDecember 31, 2000 brings to a close my two terms as your

President. It has been an experience, which I have enjoyed thor-oughly. In 2001, I become the Junior Past President with fewerduties but no less enthusiasm for the growth and health of theReliability Society. As always, I will look forward with workingwith many of you.

Much of my enjoyment as President in 2000 has been due tothe support of the excellent management teamthat we have had in place. In the Publicationsarea, Bob Loomis, Way Kuo, and Dave Frank-lin have done marvelous jobs in maintainingand even enhancing both our Transactions andNewsletter. Sam Keene has done an excellentjob in continuing our video tutorial program,also a part of Publications. In Technical Opera-tions, Koichi Inoue, with the support of Chris-tian Hansen and the technical operationschairs, has not only increased the technical ac-tivities, but also has produced our finest annualtechnical report. Jeff Voas has done an excel-lent job of coordinating our meetings and has made major contri-butions to our “globalization” efforts by arranging non-U.S.meetings and seminars. Jeff also has done an excellent job man-aging our conferences. I would like to give special recognitionto Peggy Wallace, an associate of Jeff’s. Peggy has given us sub-stantial help with meetings throughout 2000. Our Membershipteam, headed by Marsha Abramo and Pat Hetherington and sup-ported in the Chapters area by Loretta Arellano, has done a finejob in maintaining membership and elevating qualified mem-bers to Senior Member status. Dick Doyle deserves recognitionfor his work in proposing updates to our constitution and by-laws, as does Loretta for her work with elections and awards. Isend congratulations to Loretta for her election as Division VIDirector. It’s good to have a Reliability Society person in the up-per echelons of IEEE management. The other AdCom membersalso provided substantial support to the above-mentioned peo-ple and worked special projects. I appreciate their effortsgreatly. Finally, I thank all of those who have worked as editors,meeting arrangers, and special representatives for their effortsin making 2000 a successful year.

C O N T E N T SPresident’s Message

1

Editor’s Column2

Chapter Activities4

IEEE Reliability Society AdCom Meeting8

AdCom Meeting9

IEEE Reliability Society AdCom Agenda11

International Standards12

2000 IRW Final Report13

ISSRE Report13

2000 IEEE Microelectronics Reliabilityand

Qualification Workshop14

Meeting Notice – FPL'200114

Cut the Cord: Introduction to WirelessNow Available from IEEE

15

JPL Open House15

5th WSES/IEEE World Multiconferenceon Circuits, Systems, Communications

& Computers (CSCC 2001)15

The IEEE & NJIT Announce Parnership18

The IEEE & US Open University AnnouncePartnership

18

39th Annual InternationalReliability Physics Symposium

19

TECHNICAL MAGAZINE SECTION:The Status of Reliability Engineering

Technology 200121

CALL FOR PAPERSSeventh ISSAT Int'l. Conference on

Reliability and Quality in Design32

Editor:Dave Franklin

Associate Editor:John Healy

Business Manager:Bob Gauger

continued on page 3

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2 Reliability Society Newsletter ■ January 2001

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Reliability Society Newsletter InputsAll RS newsletter inputs should be sent to:

Editor Business ManagerDave Franklin Bob Gauger,300 North Oak Hills Drive [email protected] Park, CA 91377Tel: +1 818 586 9683E-mail: [email protected]

The schedule for submittals is: Newsletter Due Date

January October 8April January 8July April 8October July 8

Reliability Society Newsletter is published five times a year in January, Feb-ruary, April, July and October by the Reliability Society of the Institute ofElectrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc. Headquarters: 3 Park Avenue, 17thFloor, New York, NY 10016-5997. Sent at a cost of $1.00 per year to eachmember of the Reliability Society. Printed in U.S.A. Periodicals postage paidat New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send changesto Reliability Society Newsletter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway NJ 08854.

©2001 IEEE. Permission to copy without fee all or part of any materialwithout a copyright notice is granted provided that the copies are not madeor distributed for direct commercial advantage, and the title of the publica-tion and its date appear on each copy. To copy material with a copyright no-tice requires specific permission. Please direct all inquiries or requests toIEEE Copyrights and Permissions Office.

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delivered on computer disk and be received by the due dates indicated.Ad Size One Time 2-3 4+

Full Page $400 375 350Half Page $300 280 260Third Page (vertical) $240 225 210Quarter Page $205 190 180Eighth Page $120 110 100

Discounted per issue rates are shown for ads run in more than one issue.

Awards Awards AwardsYear 2000 brought many awards to

the Reliability Society.

� At the January awards banquet, wesaw Joanne Dugan and Jeff Voasshare the Reliability Engineer of theYear award. Sam Keene walkedaway with the Education award andwe awarded the Lifetime Achieve-ment Award to R. Owen Holbrook.

� Chapter awards are usually held atthe March meeting, but to coincidewith the Millenium Medal awards,

the chapter awards were given inJuly in Burlington VT. First placechapter award went to Boston(chairperson: Jim Fahy), 2nd placeto Dallas (chairperson: Lon Chase)and 3rd place to Denver (chairper-son: Sam Keene).

� IEEE awarded 3000 MillenniumMedals in 2000, and 21 medals werereceived from Reliability Societymembers . The medals wereawarded in July, at Burlington.

continued on page 29

RELIABILITYSOCIETY OFFICERSPresidentK. P. LaSala ([email protected])

Vice President – MembershipPat Hetherington([email protected])

Vice President – PublicationsDr. Robert J. Loomis, Jr([email protected])

Vice President – MeetingsJeff Voas ([email protected])

Vice President - Technical OperationsK. Inoue ([email protected])

SecretaryDennis Hoffman([email protected])

TreasurerR. A. Kowalski ([email protected])

STANDING COMMITTEES

Standards and DefinitionsT. Brogan([email protected])

Y. Lord([email protected])

Meetings OrganizationR. Gauger ([email protected])

General MembershipPat Hetherington([email protected])

ChaptersPat Hetherington([email protected])

Academic Education CommitteeM. Abramo ([email protected])

Professional DevelopmentM. Abramo ([email protected])

Constitution and BylawsT. Fagan ([email protected])

Nominations and AwardsL. Arellano ([email protected])

FellowsT. L. Regulinski([email protected])

FinanceR. A. Kowalski ([email protected])

HistorianA. Plait ([email protected])

January 2001 ■ Reliability Society Newsletter 3

TECHNICAL OPERATIONSVice PresidentK. Inoue ([email protected])

TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEES(12 Committees)CAD/CAEK. Janasak ([email protected])

Human Interface TechnologyK. P. LaSala ([email protected])

International ReliabilityJ. P. Rooney ([email protected])

Mechanical ReliabilityR. L. Doyle ([email protected])P. Hetherington([email protected])

Microelectronic TechnologiesA. N. Campbell([email protected])T. A. Rost ([email protected])

Reliability DesignM. Roush ([email protected])

Reliability MethodologyC. K. Hansen ([email protected])

System SafetyY. Sato ([email protected])

Software ReliabilityS. J. Keene ([email protected])

Standards & DefinitionsY. Lord([email protected])T. L. Brogan([email protected]

Testing & ScreeningH. A. Chan ([email protected])

WarrantyW. A. Zeller([email protected])

SYSTEMS COMMITTEES(8 Committees)

Aerospace & Defense SystemsD. L. Franklin ([email protected])

Automotive SystemsC. Aladekugbe([email protected])B. Dodson([email protected])

Consumer ElectronicsVacant

Energy SystemsM. Lively ([email protected])J. Zamanali ([email protected])

Industrial SystemsH. Yajima ([email protected])

Information Technology &CommunicationsJ. Healy ([email protected])

Medical SystemsVacant

SensorsVacant

I would like to send congratulations tothe new set of society officers:

Dennis Hoffman – PresidentBob Loomis – Vice President for

PublicationsKoichi Inoue – Vice President for

Technical OperationsJeff Voas – Vice President for

MeetingsAnn Campbell – Vice President

for Membership

These all are excellent, experiencedpeople who deserve your full support.Along with my congratulations to them, Ialso send them a challenge to maintainand expand the society and to increase so-ciety services to the members. In 2000,we took some steps to increase services,but there is more to be done. Lest the offi-cers consider themselves unfairly chal-lenged, I also challenge the society

members to become more involved in so-ciety efforts to increase services to theoverall membership. Nothing is morefrustrating to an officer than to have agood idea and then not have the humanresources to convert it to reality.

The above focuses primarily on the in-ternal perspective. But there is the largerexternal IEEE perspective for the Reli-ability Society. The IEEE perspective hasbeen a dynamic one in 2000 and promisesto be even more dynamic in 2001. IEEE isin the process of updating its strategicplans. The Reliability Society will partic-ipate in developing the IEEE strategicplans and then in determining how itshould implement those plans plus itsown strategic initiatives. The financialaspects of the IEEE perspective also havebeen dynamic in 2000 and may be dy-namic in 2001. Although proposals for anew IEEE financial model were defeatedin 2000, new approaches to financialmodeling are arising as part of the strate-gic planning process. How these new ap-proaches to financial management affectthe Reliability Society remains to be

seen. Reliability Society members shouldexpect a continuation in the “globaliza-tion” of IEEE, although the exact form ofthis seems unclear at this time. As most ofus know already, the technology environ-ment is changing rapidly in a great manyareas. IEEE is adapting to the rapidlychanging technological environment bycreating new technology committees,councils, and publications. Major consid-erations in the strategic planning processare how to involve IEEE more rapidly innew technology evolution and how todisseminate new technology informationmore rapidly to the IEEE members.

From our own internal perspectiveand the external IEEE perspective, 2001promises to have many stimulating activ-ities. Be part of them!

Best regards,

Ken

Kenneth P. LaSala, Ph.D.President,

IEEE Reliability [email protected]

President’s MesssageContinued from page 1

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Chapter ActivitiesBoston Chapter

The Boston Chapter is in the middle ofanother very active year.

The season began in September with amonthly meeting on “Software Reliabil-ity Estimations and Projections,” givenby David Dwyer of Sanders, a LockheedMartin Company.

In October, we held a Fall Lecture Se-ries on “Weibull Analysis of Reliabilityand Accelerated Stress Test Data.” Thisthree-evening event was presented by ourtechnology experts, Joe Dzekevich of3Com Corporation and Gene Bridgers ofSycamore Networks. Joe and Gene orga-nized our last three lecture series, and wethank them for their continued support ofthe Chapter.

The November monthly meeting con-sisted of a “Tour of Integrity Design andTest Services” in Littleton, MA. AlexPorter of Entela, the parent company ofIntegrity, also discussed a variety of ac-celerated testing topics, including one ofthe latest developments in Environmen-tal Stress Screening: Failure Mode Veri-fication Testing.

Our annual Past Chairs Meeting washeld in December. All previous ChapterChairs were invited to attend, and eachwas introduced during this popular din-ner meeting. Giora Kedem of Avici Sys-tems gave a interesting talk on hisexperiences with “Printed Circuit BoardReliability.”

The next three monthly meetings willcover different approaches to reliabilityprediction. In January, Joe Dzekevich of3Com Corporation will discuss the“Relex” software tool. In February, Da-vid Tang of CTI-Cryogenics will reviewthe new “PRISM” methodology, devel-oped by the Reliability Analysis Center.

In March, Gene Bridgers of SycamoreNetworks will present his own parts countapproach and “Prediction Tool.” JoeDzekevich and Gene Bridgers will team to-gether again in March to bring us a Spring

Lecture Series on “Design of ExperimentsFeaturing the Fusion One Tool.”

The April monthly meeting will behosted by Dana Crowe of M/A-Com inLowell, MA, who will guide us on a“Tour of M/A-Com,” focusing on theirWorld Class Environmental Testing andAnalytical Physics Laboratories.

Finally, our capstone event is the“38th Annual Spring Reliability Sympo-sium,” which will be held in May. Thisyear’s theme is “Reliability and Safety,”and Dr. William Goble, author of thebook “Control System Safety Evaluationand Reliability,” will be the keynotespeaker. John Rooney is serving as theProgram Chair, and there is still time tosubmit papers to him for possible presen-tation at the Symposium.

For more information on BostonChapter activities, please visit our website at http://www.channel1.com/users/ieee/home.html.

Jeff ClarkChair, Boston [email protected]

Cleveland ChapterThe Cleveland Chapter had tw

Vincent Lalli, [email protected]

CINCINNATI Chapter

Dallas ChapterLon Chase

[email protected]

DenverTom Basso, Treasurer

Phone [email protected]

Japan ChapterShuichi Fukuda, ChairChair, Japan Chapter

[email protected]

Los Angeles ChapterDavid L Franklin

[email protected]

Twin CitiesMinnesota Chapter

Submitted by James McLinn,

Past Chapter chair,for Norb Santoski Chapter chair

[email protected]

Philadelphia ChapterFulvio E Oliveto

Philadelphia Section609-722-3147

San Diego ChapterRichard L. Doyle, PE

Secretary of Rel. [email protected]

Singapore Chapter

(ED/Reliability/CPMT JointChapter)

Report on 1999 Activities - IEEESingapore, REL/CPMT/EDChapter

Chapter Chair:Dr. Ong Soon Huat,

email:[email protected]

Report by: YC Ng,Secretary of Singapore

REL/CPMT/ED Chapter.

SwitzerlandMauro Ciappa

Switzerland Chapter Chairemail: [email protected]


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Joanne Bechta DuganJeffrey M. Voas

Sam Keene

Education Award

Engineers of the Year

R. Owen Holbrook

Lifetime AchievementAward


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Millennium Medal Recipients*Medal awarded through Section/Region

Abramo Arellano* Campbell Ciappa Doyle* DuganHoffman Inoue Keene Kowalski KuoLaSala Loomis Nitta Rost Tonti

Tim Rost (Dallas)

Sam Keene (Denver)

Chapter Awards

Dick Kowalski (Baltimore)

1st place: Boston – chairperson: Jim Fahy2nd place: Dallas – chairperson: Lon Chase3rd place: Denver – chairperson: Sam Keene4th place: Philadelphia – chairperson: Fulvio Oliveto4th place: Baltimore – chairperson: Walter Willing


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IEEE Reliability Society AdCom Meeting

July 15, 2000Burlington, Vermont

Those in attendance, Alan Street,Loretta Arellano, Bud Trapp, Bill Tonti,Koichi Inoue, Dick Kowalski, RobertLoomis, Ken LaSala, Bob Gauger, JeffVoas, Dick Doyle, Way Kuo, DennisHoffman, John Healy, Marsha Abramo,Sam Keene, Ann Campbell, DavidFranklin, Shuichi Nitta, Tim Rost.

The meeting was called to order at8:30AM. A quorum was present. Theagenda was approved.

The minutes were approved. Pastaction items were reviewed and statusupdated.

President’s Report:Ken La Sala discussed the TAB Strat-

egy Planning meeting. Meeting to be heldin Irving, TX and Dennis Hoffman to at-tend if possible. IEEE is conducting anIndustrial Relations Study – not surewhere it is headed. Recommendations areopen to RS for TAB positions if someoneis interested. If you want to get involvedin TAB and want one of these positions,please let Ken know.

Treasurer’s Report:Dick Kowalski gave his Treasurer’s

report. An additional investment (ap-proved at the April AdCom meeting) wasmade on June 30 and acknowledgmentwas received from the IEEE. The poten-tial IEEE overhead assessment to RS isbeing projected at $74.5K in 2000 and$123.4K in 2001. Dick reviewed new thebudget from IEEE.

� Action: Koichi Inoue needs to re-view and make a recommendationat the Jan 2001 AdCom meeting onCouncil sponsorship. Basically, arewe getting our money’s worth?

� Motion: Motion made by Bud Trappand seconded by David Franklin thatthis presented budget be accepted, aslong as updated changes to IEEE areacceptable. Motion approved.

Meetings:Jeff Voas gave the Meetings report.

1998 IRWS closed with a surplus to RS.

Waiting on close outs from ISSRE’99,IRPS’99, IRWS’99, RAMS’00, andIRPS’00. Dick Kowalski is waiting forthe reports. Suggestions for site of 2001outside US meeting were Taiwan, Singa-pore, and Hong Kong.

� Action: Loretta is to get with LACouncil to secure booth space for aRS display at WESCON /AUTOTESTCOM and to stay intouch with Jeff.

� AdCom approved technical spon-sorship of the ASQ Six Sigma con-ference in Las Vegas

Membership:� Action: Membership to review the

IES membership program, Millen-nium for Success, material to seewhat that organization is doing to re-tain and capture members and possi-bly develop some ideals for RS.

Publications:Bob Loomis opened the floor for his

team to give their reports. Dr. Way Kuostated that the 2000 issues of the Transac-tions are full. Delay in next issue is due toelectronic input delays within IEEE.Now taking a month versus a few daysbefore. Appointing Associate Editors forrenewable 4-year terms. Ann Campbellreported that the TDMR was developinga web site for author interaction and thatBud Trapp, Bill Tonti, and Ann were onthe TDMR Management Board. TonyChan will lead the Accelerated Testingvideo development.

� Action / Suggestion: David Franklinasked Way to make available to himthe authors of papers not detailedenough for the transactions as asource for possible publication inthe Newsletter.

� Action: Bob Loomis to look into andmake recommendation for TSM andRS involvement in TDMR.

� Action: Bob Loomis to pull theopen-positions listings out of Dis-cussion section and make a separatesection for open-positions on RSweb site.

� Action: Bob Loomis will have theIEEE expense report templateadded to web site.

Jr. Past President’sReport:

Loretta Arellano gave her report.Loretta identified the new AdCom candi-dates, identified the IEEE MillenniumAward recipients, and identified the RSChapter Award winners. The San DiegoRS chapter became official. WashingtonDC chapter went inactive – anyone in thatarea interested in getting this chapter ac-tive again needs to contact Ken La Sala.

� Action: Dennis Hoffman to domembers’ attendance check forAdCom meetings.

Lunch DiscussionImprovement Ideals:

1. AdCom members and officers need toidentify RS jobs that are available,with job descriptions and with timecommitment estimates for pre-screen-ing use.

2. New AdCom member mentoring /assigned to a VP.

3. Four meeting a year seem to be a goodnumber – present schedule okay.

4. Welcome new AdCom members, firstvia a letter letting them know what toexpect and to think about theirAdCom involvement.

5. Need to develop a RS Purpose andMission Statement for the letter.

Tech Ops Report:Koichi Inoue provided the AdCom

with a written status report that he distrib-uted to the members. A Newsletter articlewas in the July issue covering Tech OpsTechnical Committee Reorganization –Part 2. New Tech Ops chairs were ap-pointed: Keith Janasak (R&M CAE),Clement Aladekugbe (Automotive Sys-tems), and Hiroshi Yajima (IndustrialSystems). Hank Wolf (Info Tech & Com)resigned as he is retiring – many thanks toHank for many years of service. The An-nual Tech Ops Report on Status of RelEng Technology 2001 will be developedfor publication.


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� Action: Ken LaSala took an actionto call Dr. Roush and Mark Livelyabout their Tech Ops reports.

� Action: Tech Ops Chairs need tosubmit inputs for the Annual TechOps Report by 1 August 2000.

� Action: Koichi Inoue will send JohnHealy and David Franklin job de-scriptions for the Systems chair.

� Action: Jeff Voas and MarshaAbramo need to reconcile the IEEEand RS speakers lists.

� Action: Koichi Inoue to reviewCouncil involvement, along withtravel and other liabilities, and makepro / con recommendation in Ma-drid if possible.

� AdCom approved covering part ofthe travel expense for Sam Keene togive his SW Reliability and SixSigma Process Initiatives presenta-tion and to promote the IEEE andthe RS. for the Tokyo RS Chapter.

� Action: Koichi Inoue will contactYvonne Lord on status of P1413 andsendoutstatusprior toOctobermeeting.

Standards Status:■ August 2:

The Standards and Definitions Commit-tee currently is involved in two standardsprojects. One, P1467, is addressing the plan-ning aspects and assessment methodologyfor reliability growth programs. This stan-dards document is intended to be a replace-ment for MIL-HDBK-189. New technologiesare not a part of this project. The second pro-ject, P1413.1 under the sponsorship of IEEE

Standards Board SCC37, concerns the selec-tion and use of existing reliability predictionmethodologies. There is no plan to developnew prediction models for specific technolo-gies. To summarize, the current work of theStandards and Definitions Committee doesnot address new reliability technology. Per-haps future work by some of the technol-ogy-specific committees could be the subjectof a standards document.■ August 14, 2000:

P1467 - This Working Group is currentlyupgrading their PAR for submittal to theStandards Board before the current PAR ex-pires at the end of the year. The major up-grade is a change from a guide to arecommended practice. Dr. Paul Ellner, theWorking Group Chair, reports that he ex-pects to have the initial draft of the completedocument ready for review by the entireworking group before the end of the year.

P1413.1 - This project, sponsored byIEEE Standards Board SCC37, expects tohave an initial draft ready for WorkingGroup review in the mid-Octobertime-frame. Minutes of meetings andteleconferences are posted on the web afterthey are approved: http://grouper,ieee.org/groups/reliability/wg1413/index.html.These minutes provide such information asmeeting schedules, action item lists, docu-ment outlines and participation. This grouphas a goal of monthly interchange.■ Oct 12, 2000 Update:

The status above is current. P1467 isstriving to meet a 27 October deadline forsubmittal of the revised PAR. The re-

quirement for IEEE and SA membershipsis the current barrier. The next P1413.1meeting is scheduled for 16 and 17 Octo-ber in Phoenix. I have made arrange-ments to attend. Draft 0 of the standardsdocument is a planned outcome of thatmeeting. Meanwhile, P1468 - 70, whichhave been languishing for nearly 4 years,were successfully withdrawn at the 21September Standards Board meeting.

Sr. Past President’sReport:

Dick Doyle went over his changes to theBy Laws with much discussion by theAdCom. Dick was given a feel for the itemsthat were acceptable and what wasn’t so hecould continue with his revision process.

� AdCom approved allowing forAdCom business to be voted on be-tween meetings. It would be takenby e-mail. Dick to incorporate in fi-nal draft.

� Action: Dick Kowalski to send DickDoyle the latest copy of the RS Fieldof Interest statement.

New Business:� AdCom approved setting aside seed

money to sponsor a one day CriticalSystems Safety Conference at theIEEE ECBS (Engineering Com-puter Based Systems) Conference inApril 2001, with the seed money notto exceed $5K.

Meeting adjourned.

IEEE AdCom Meeting

October 21, 2000Crowne Plaza MadridCity Center HotelMadrid, Spain

Attendees:Dennis Hoffman, John Healy, Luis

Gandia, Bob Loomis, Bud Trapp, Ken

La Sala, Bob Gauger, Jeffrey Voas,Dick Doyle, Marsha Abramo, LorettaArellano, Koichi Inoue

Ken La Sala called the meeting toorder a few minutes after 9:00 AM.Ken welcomed everyone to Spain andto the AdCom meeting. The agendawas approved. The meeting minutesfrom the last meeting were approved.

President’s Report:Ken La Sala provided his report. IEEE

Strategic Planning — First meeting washeld in Dallas. This meeting resulted inworking groups being formed to work onmission statement, pro and cons, threats,electronic publishing, etc. A second meet-

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ing is planned for Saturday, Nov 18, thatKen plans to attend. Major items not pres-ently covered are the IEEE organizationand international membership. Planningsessions are planned and focused with toomuch headquarters involvement.

Ken did not attend the last Super Con-ductivity Council meeting. His attendancewas excused by the Chair. The next Sen-sors Council will be held on Oct 28, 2000.Ken plans to attend. The council presentlyfocuses on publications and conferences.The Council does not have technical com-mittees. The council should focus on areasof sponsoring-society interest, but this isnot their prime concern.

Action Item Review:All of the Open action items were

status’ed. Where action was completed,the action item was closed. The closeditems are provided at the end of the min-utes.

� Action — Koichi Inoue is to getwith Yvonne Lord on distributionlist for Standards Working Gro7upsto ensure that the AdCom membersare listed.

� Action — Dennis Hoffman is tocomplete action to document mem-ber attendance for last 8 meetings bythe Jan 2001 meeting.

Treasurer’s Report:Ken La Sala presented Dick

Kowalski’s report covering the RS bud-get. The 2000 budget should generate ap-proximately a surplus, depending onactual income / expenses for the remain-der of the year. Approximately 55 per-cent of the Society’s assets are invested inlong term investments, which is consis-tent with IEEE guidelines Ken asked VPsto start thinking about 2002 budget and topass their information to the newlyelected VPs. Note: The 2002 Budget is anagenda item for Jan 2001 meeting

Based on the Treasurer’s recommen-dation to invest additional surplus fundsin the long term IEEE investment accountwas approved.

Meetings VP Report:Jeff Voas gave his meeting report,

covering conference closeouts, confer-ence budget approvals, and significantevents. The 1999 IRPS closeout is in au-dit, 1999 IRW is open, and1999 ISSREis closed. 2000 ISSRE shows a loss of$2K for our share. Budget received for2001 IRPS. RS will be a technical spon-sor again for the Testing Computer Soft-ware Conference (TCS2001) scheduledfor June 2001.

� Action — Jeff Voas contact BillTonti concerning 1999 IRW closeand take action for IRW to getclosed faster. Jeff will also contactVal Monshaw concerning thewhereabouts of the RAMS surpluscheck for approximately $4K.

� Action — Jeff voas will provide con-ference sponsorship notification at theHuman Interface Technology Sub-committee meeting on Wednesdayduring RAMS.

� Action — Sam Keene and Jeff Voaswill make a recommendation, withpros and cons, for the 2001 fall soft-ware safety conference.

� Action — Marsha Abramo is to pro-vide Jeff Voas with informationconcerning 2001 Singapore Physi-cal Analytical Conference.

� Technical sponsorship of TCS 2001was approved.

� Action — Jeff Voas will send to BobLoomis (or Webmaster) the latestlist of RS conference sponsorship,by type of sponsorship, for postingon the web.

Membership VP Report:Pat Hetherington resigned as VP Mem-

bership. Ken appointed Loretta Arellanoto act as VP Membership until new offi-cers are elected, the AdCom concurred.

Membership is declining about 5-6 per-cent per year. Our VP Membership needsto establish and execute an action plan toturn this decline around. Bob Gauger andMarsha volunteered to help the Member-ship VP. Marsha is our PACE Representa-tive. The Northern Italy chapter is inactive.

AdCom approved funding of up to$3K for sending out a membership sur-vey. John Healy volunteered to reviewand revise the Membership survey as

necessary to increase the participation /return rate.

Publications VP Report:Bob Loomis gave his Publication re-

port. Bob presented a Publication data-base conversion plan that looks veryplausible and AdCom concurred with hisapproach. Sam Keene’s video report in-dicates that thirty video tapes, spreadacross 8 topics, have been sold in 2000 sofar and that the AST video should be awinner.

� Action – With the strong support ofAdCom Way Kuo will formalize thedatabase conversion proposal (com-patible with IEEE) present it at theJan 2001 RAMS AdCom meeting.

� Action — Way Kuo needs to inves-tigate how T-MDR is electronicallyinteracting with authors as a possi-ble ramp up for RS.

� Next Transactions (Sept) will betwo months late. About 92 percentof the IEEE journals are late becauseof IEEE HQ electronic publicationissues — switching to new editing /composition SW system, conver-sion to an all tagged format vs cam-era ready, and open org positions.Papers are available for our Trans-actions.

� Action — Bob Gauger to look intocombining the business aspects (ad-vertisements / revenue) of theTransactions with his work on theNewsletter, as RAE intends to stopdoing the Transaction cover adver-tisements with the December issue.

� Action — Bob Gauger to investi-gate putting RS membership form inboth our Transactions and Newslet-ter and the VP Membership to de-velop a suitable membership formfor the Transactions and the News-letter.

� Note: The sense of the AdCom ispositive for Bob Loomis to spend$1.2K of Publication discretionaryfunds for getting web site up to date.Also Bob Loomis will contact AlanStreet to determine his commitmentto continue as RS Webmaster.

� Action — Sam Keene to work withIEEE Marketing to get a better focus(targeted audience publications) on

IEEE AdComMeetingContinued from page 9


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selling our videos. Report toAdCom at Jan 2001 meeting.

Tech Ops VP Report:Koichi Inoue gave his report. Koichi

has appointed two new chairs: JohnHealy for Information Technology &Communications Committee (replacingHank Wolfe who retired) and as our rep-resentative to the IEEE National Com-mit tee on Communicat ions &Information Policy (CCIP), and DaveFranklin for Aerospace & Defense Sys-tems Committee. Koichi has chair open-ings for Consumer Electronic, MedicalSystems, and Sensor Systems — any vol-unteers or recommendations. The TechOps Semiannual Report has been com-plied and sent to the Newsletter for publi-cation. Koichi and Dick Doyle createdgroup e-mail for Tech Ops. The AnnualTech Ops Report on the Status of Reli-ability Engineering Technology 2001 isin draft form for January 2001 Newsletterpublication. The Annual Tech Ops ChairMeeting is planned for Sunday, Jan 21,prior to RAMS and directly after theAdCom meeting on Saturday.

AdCom granted permission for theAnnual RE Technology Report to be re-printed, as in the past, within the RACJournal and in the Journal of the Reli-ability Engineering Society of Japan.This reprint would be after it has ap-peared in the Newsletter.

� Action — Ops Manual needs to bereviewed by old and new Tech OpsVPs to assure job descriptions arecovered and are adequate.

Jr. Past President’sReport:

Loretta gave her report covering nom-inations, awards, and chapters. A nomi-nating committee was established foridentifying candidates for the AdCommember election. A committee was es-tablished to identify the new ExCom offi-cers for election. Loretta missed theNewsletter for Annual Award nomina-tions, so she recommended that she use amail out. Plans are underway to begin theChapter Awards process. Loretta recom-mended that the awards continue to begiven at the July AdCom meeting ban-quet. Loretta recommended that we initi-

ate our own Chapter Congress in con-junction with the July meeting.

� AdCom approved the mail out ofAnnual Awards candidate requests.

Sr. Past President’sReport:

Dick Doyle gave his report. Dick pro-vided copies of his recommendedchanges to the RS constitution andby-laws.

� Action — Jeff Voas to send votermodule for web to Bob Loomis.

� Action — The AdCom membersneed to read the actual by-laws forwording, review Dick’s recom-mended changes, and send com-ments to Dick Doyle, LorettaArellano, and to Ken LaSala.

� Action — Dick Doyle and LorettaArellano to revive pointer informa-tion for new members.

Old Business:Ways to improve Reliability Engi-

neering were discussed.Ken La Sala adjourned the meeting a

little before 4:00 PM

IEEE Reliability Society AdCom Agenda

January 20, 20018:00 New AdCom Member Breakfast8:30 Call to Order - D. Hoffman8:30-8:45 Agree to Agenda - D. Hoffman8:45 9:00 Introduce new AdCom mem-

bers and new officers - D. Hoffman9:00-9:15 Minutes Approval -

2001 Secretary or Dennis Hoffman9:15-9:45 President’s Report -

D. HoffmanPresident’s remarks

� Review of action items from lastmeeting

� Strategic Planning� AdCom replacement selection

9:45-10:15 Treasurers Report -R. Kowalski� Budget Report� FY00 Budget

� FY01 Budget Planning10:15-10:30 Break10:30-11:00 Meetings - J. Voas

� Conference closeouts and budgetapprovals

� Significant events� Fall 01 AdCom meeting - Hong

Kong, Singapore, Taiwan? Or in as-sociation with

� Firs t IEEE Workshop onNanotechnology (IEEE-NANO2001). Date: Oct. 28-29(30), 2001Location: Outrigger Wailea Resort,Maui, Hawaii, USA

� Technical support for 2001Nanotechnology Workshop?

� RS Support for AST Meeting� RS support for High Assurance Sys-

tems Engineering conference11:00-12:00 Publications - R. Loomis

� Transactions report - W. Kuo� Newsletter report - D. Franklin� Web site update - A. Street� Evans Project Proposal & Progress -

W. Kuo� T-SM Review Report - M. Abramo� T-MDR Report - A. Campbell� Video Program Status - S. Keene� SREWG website

1. cover the website initial capital(or establishment) cost2. cover maintenance ofthe SREWG website (for 3 yearsfrom Nov 00 -3. Others???

12:00-1:00 Working Lunch (in meetingroom)

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12:15-12:45 Membership - AnnCampbell or John Healy

Membership Overview - AnnCampbell or John Healy

1:00-2:00 Special Presentation:IEEE Educational Activities -Dr. Peter Weisner IEEE/EA

2:00-2:30

� Technical Operations - K. Inoue

� Technical operations status andcommittee significant events

� Standards - Y. Lord, T. Brogan

� Council and liaison news - Sensors(LaSala), ITS (?), Nanotechnology(?), others?

� IEEE New Technologies Workshop(18-19 Jan 01) - attender

2:30-3:00 Junior Past President’s Report- K. LaSala

� Nominations Committee Report -AdCom and Officer Election Re-sults - L. Arellano

� Awards and Medals report - L.Arellano

3:00-3:15 Break

3:15-4:15 Senior Past President’s Report- L. Arellano� By-laws and constitution revision

progress - R. Doyle� Long-range planning - R. Doyle� Updated field of interest progress

progress - R. Doyle

4:15-4:30 Old Business

4:30-5:00 New Business

5:00 Adjourn

6:30 Banquet

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International Standards

ISO 9001:2000, ISO9004:2000 and ISO9000:2000 AdvanceTo FDIS Stage

At its meeting in Kyoto, Subcom-mittee (SC) 2, Quality Systems, of ISOTechnical Committee 176, QualityManagement and Quality Assurance,voted in plenary session to elevate thedrafts of ISO 9001:2000, Quality man-agement systems-Requirements, and

ISO 9004:2000, Quality manage-ment systems-Guidelines for per-formance improvements, to theFinal Draft International Standard(FDIS) stage. In addition,SC 1,Concepts and Terminology, votedto elevate ISO 9000:2000, Qualitymanagement systems-Fundamen-tals and vocabulary, to FDIS status.

The FDIS stage for an ISO stan-dard involves a circulation to theP-members, for an up-or-down

vote on approval of the FDIS for publica-tion as an International Standard. Unlikeearlier stages, members do not providecomments with their votes, since no fur-ther revisions are to be made.

The three FDISs will be edited over thecoming weeks by the subcommittees in coop-eration with the ISO Central Secretariat andare expected to be available for ballot by theP-members in early September. The targetdate for issuance of the revised standards re-mains mid-November.

IEEE ReliabilitySociety AdcomAgendaContinued from page 11

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2000 IRW FINAL REPORTThe final report of the 2000 Integrated

International Reliability Workshop (IRW)marks the 19th year since this Workshopwas started in 1982 as the Wafer Level Re-liability Workshop. Since its inception, theworkshop has focused on informal andclose interaction of the attendees in a re-laxed setting with minimum distractions.Judging by the record setting attendancethis year, it remains a unique and effectivevenue for one-on-one interaction amongreliability professionals to address the re-quirements of our ever-changing frontier inintegrated circuits.

This year’s program began with a chal-lenging keynote on low voltage dielectricreliability co-authored by Dan DiMaria andJim Stathis of IBM.

Keeping abreast of late breaking news,and in-depth reviews of specific subject ar-eas is always of interest at IRW, and is exe-cuted through our renowned tutorialofferings. This year was no exception as wehad three excellent tutorials on technologyqualification, ultra thin-oxide reliability, andIC circuit fabrication and yield control.These tutorials were followed by 25 plat-form-presented technical presentations on:Designing in Reliability, Customer ProductReliability Requirements, Contributors toFailure, Reliability and CharacterizationModels, and Wafer Level Reliability.

New to the technical program this yearare refereed posters. These enhance our al-ready popular late afternoon open postersessions.Manydiscussionsaroseon the reli-

ability avenues appropriately coined “De-vice Road, Gate Oxide Alley,Electromigration Avenue, and Burn InSquare”. We plan to continue this successfulvenue next year, so don’t forget to include achoice of “platform-presented” or “poster”paper on your 2001 submission.

Enhancing our technical program is al-ways an IRW goal. This year we werepleased to show two IEEE instructional vid-eos during our Wednesday afternoon break.They were: Oxide Wearout, Breakdown,and Reliability by Dr. David Dumin ofClemson University and MEMS Perfor-mance and Reliability by Paul McWhorter,Samuel L. Miller, and William M. Miller ofSandia National Laboratories.

Discussion groups (DG’s), a popularparticipatory evening activity, complementthe technical presentations as they offer a re-laxed group focusing on one topical area.This year we discussed and debated GateOxide Reliability, Wafer Level ReliabilityMonitoring, Ultra-Thin Oxides,Electromigration, Negative-Bias-Tempera-ture Instabilities, and Product Qualifica-tion/Burn-In. They were all led byknowledgeableandcompetentmoderators.

The special interest groups (SIGs) pro-vide opportunities to build synergy be-tween individuals who wish tocommunicate and actively advance reli-ability physics for a particular topic. Theseefforts are unstructured and the level of in-volvement is left to each group. This year,SIGs met to discuss the following topics:

Wafer Level Reliability, ProcessQualification, Electromigration, OxideReliability and Non-Volatile Memory.We look forward to the papers that are al-ways a SIG outcome. SIGs remain activethroughout the year by communicatingthrough our web sitehttp://www.irps.org/irw.

This workshop is the product of a collec-tive effort of volunteers representing the re-liability physics community, includingsemiconductor manufacturers, equipmentsuppliers and customers, as well as govern-ment research labs and universities. Thanksto all of them for a job well done.

It is not too early to plan for next year’sworkshop: Please review the enclosed 2001call for papers and plan to attend and con-tribute. Remember that the abstract deadlineis July 6th, 2001.

In closing, I want to remind you of the“coin challenge” we had. I assume the activ-ity went over well, … and yes, I have reim-bursed Andreas $0.50; and I have twophotos left! If someone can interpret the fol-lowing phrase, then I have something foryou next year. “The ELF had a FIT whenZOBI arrived”.

Regards, and thanks to everyone formaking IRW 2000 a success. I look forwardto seeing you at next year’s workshop.

William R. TontiGeneral Chair

2000 IRW

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ISSRE ReportI represented RS at ISSRE this year in

San Jose. Our attendance was down, duein part to this meeting being held on thehighest Jewish holiday of the year, YomKippur. It also overlaid Columbus Day,which could be a factor also. About 110folks attended, whereas 140 would be de-sired. Last year, in Boca Rotan, 220 folksattended a record number.

Next year ISSRE will be held inHong Kong 28 Nov - 1 December at

noon. Michael Lyu, who now lives inHK will be the Chair. Michael had somephoto clips of Hong Kong and the set-ting looked exciting. He has secured ahotel rate of $83 per night for a four starhotel. ISSRE would be delighted tohave RS AdCom held at the same time.RS has been asked to be a financial par-ticipant in 2001 ISSRE. This is our re-cent history of participation. I agreedthat we would continue our level of sup-

port. We are running a slight surplus onour ISSRE support and our position isvery recognized at the SymposiumSteering committee which I participatein at the conference.

RS was also asked to see if we coulddeliver some papers on combined soft-ware and hardware reliability. I proposewe meet that challenge for 2001.

Regards,Sam Keene


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2000 IEEE Microelectronics Reliability andQualification Workshop

The 3rd Annual IEEE Microelectron-ics Reliability and Qualification Work-shop (MRQW), sponsored by the IEEEReliability Society and the IEEE Compo-nents, Packaging, and Manufacturing So-ciety, was held on Oct. 31st – Nov. 1st,2000 at the Hilton in Glendale, CA. Orga-nized by Founder and General Chair Dr.Sammy Kayali and Technical ProgramChair Dr. John F. Conley, Jr., both of theNASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), theworkshop was a success. Over eighty peo-ple attended and participation was truly in-ternational, with authors and attendeesrepresenting eleven countries,twenty-three companies, fourteen univer-sities, and thirteen government agencies.

The small size of the workshop en-couraged extensive interaction amongparticipants, detailed technical discus-sions, and excellent question and answersessions during and after the presenta-tions. The final technical program con-sisted of twenty-eight oral, five invited,and nine poster presentations. The key-

note address was delivered by Dr. LeonAlkalai (Director of JPL’s Center for In-tegrated Space Microsystems) and wasentitled, “NASA’s Deep Space Explora-tion: From Astronomical Units to Ang-stroms.” Other invited speakers includedDr. Eric Vogel of NIST who gave an ex-cellent presentation entitled, “Issues inHigh-k Gate Dielectrics for Future MOSDevices,” Prof. Carl Thompson of MIT,“Circuit-Level and Layout-Specific In-terconnect Reliability Assessments,” Dr.Phil Canfield of Conexant, “Yield andReliability Challenges in the Migrationfrom DARPA GaAs Pilot Line to HighVolume GaAs HBT Process Line,” andProf. Allesandro Paccagnella of theUniversita di Padova who gave an infor-mative presentation on “Radiation Ef-fects in Ultra-thin MOS Gate Oxides.”

Local Arrangements Chair, Dr. Jo-anne Wellman (JPL), coordinated themeeting facilities and activities, includ-ing continental breakfasts, two lunches,and an evening reception. Communica-

tions Chair, Peter Schrock (JPL) coordi-nated the paper submission process andthe A/V part of the program. The Work-shop Proceedings was prepared Mr.Schrock (JPL), Yvette Berumen (JPL),and Dr. Leif Sheik (JPL). Exhibits / Pub-licity Chair, Jim Weiler (JPL) organizedthe Industrial Exhibition, four companiesexhibited. The Workshop webpage wasmaintained by Manuel Gallegos.

The MRQ workshop focuses on thelatest results as well as work in progressin all areas of microelectronics device re-liability and qualification methodologies.More information can be found athttp://parts.jpl.nasa.gov/workshop/home.htm.

Dr. John F. Conley, Jr.Technical Program Chair,

MRQW 2000NASA JPL

California Institute of TechnologyPasadena, CA 91109

[email protected]

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Meeting NoticeFPL’2001

Call for PapersCall for Tutorials

Call for Exhibitors, Industrial Papers27 - 29 August 2001

Belfast, Northern Ireland

FPL 2001: 11th International Con-ference on Field Programmable Logicand Applications

Conference theme: Technology,tools and applications with a particularemphasis on DSP, networking andTelecommunications

Paper deadline: 9 March 2001, No-tification of Acceptance: 14 May 2001

The proceedings will be published bySpringer Verlag - within the LNCS series(Lecture Notes on Computer Science).See: http://link.springer.de/series/lncs/

General Chair : Roger Woods,Queen’s Universi ty of Belfast ,[email protected]. Program Chair:Gordon Brebner, University of Edin-burgh, [email protected]

For further details, see the conferenceweb page on: http://www.ee.qub.ac.uk/dsp/fpl2001

Authors are invited to submit PDF oftheir paper (10 pages maximum) byMarch 9, 2001 via E-mail [email protected]. For guidelines, seeWeb site http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html


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Cut the Cord: Introduction to Wireless Now Availablefrom IEEE

Piscataway, NJ. 27 November 2000.Introduction to Wireless and PersonalCommunications, an IEEE self-studycourse, is now available from the IEEE.At the COMDEX 2000 held in Las Ve-gas, Nevada, L.M. Ericsson TelephoneCo. President Kurt Hellström said in akeynote presentation, “We believe thatthe mobile Internet will soon be biggerthan the fixed Internet. It will happen forthe same reasons the cords of the tele-phone were cut. It appeals to a basic hu-man need for freedom and convenience.”

Don’t be left behind in the wirelesstransformation. Get the fundamentalsfrom this self-study course.

Dr. Vijay K. Garg has designed thiscourse to provide basic understanding ofwireless and personal communications. Itincludes an overview of the basics of tele-communication systems and traffic engi-neering; an introduction to cellular/PCSsystems, radio propagation; and the fun-damentals of radio technology. The

course focuses on information process-ing in wireless communications and ex-plores the fundamentals of wirelessmobile communications.

After completing this course, you willbe able to:

� demonstrate an understanding of thebasics of teletraffic engineering,

� examine information processing ina wireless system (speech coding,channel coding, interleaving, modu-lation, etc),

� recognize components of a cellular /BCS system,

� develop propagation models and es-timate path loss,

� discuss antenna systems and linkbudget,

� describe 2G North American andEuropean cellular systems.

The course package comes with astudy guide, final exam, and the best-sell-ing Prentice-Hall book by Dr. Garg andJoseph E. Wilkes, Wireless & Personal

Communications Systems. Upon success-ful completion of the exam, students areeligible to receive eight (8) IEEE Con-tinuing Education Units (CEUs).

Vijay K. Garg is a Distinguished Mem-ber of the Technical Staff at Lucent Tech-nologies, Inc. His professionalresponsibilities include design ofGSM-based systems, evaluation of the per-formance and capacity of mobile switchingcenters, and specification of operationssystem requirements for wireless networks.

To order use code HL5758-TCU,IEEE member price: $350.00; list price:$450.00. IEEE Customer Service De-partment, 445 Hoes Lane, PO Box 1331,Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331, USA;e-mail: [email protected];phone: +1 800 678 4333 (USA and Can-ada), +1 732 981 0060 (worldwide);Web: http://shop.ieee.org/store.

For a complete listing of educationalproducts see www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/cathome.htm.

JPL Open HouseMay 19 - 20, 2001

Every year, JPL hosts its two-dayOpen House and invites the public tocome explore the facility. This popular,

free event provides a golden opportu-nity for the public to visit the Labora-tory and learn all about our latest

projects. For more information, visithttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/openhouse.

Jim Weiler

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5th WSES/IEEE World MULTICONFERENCE ONCircuits, Systems, Communications & Computers(CSCC 2001)

JULY 8-15, 2001Location: Rethymnon, CRETE (GREECE)

http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/~mastor/[email protected]

Jointly with the 3rd MCP and 3rd MCMETechnical Co-Sponsorship by IEEE Signal Processing Society

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RELEX 2-page spreadpick up from Oct. p14


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RELEX 2-page spreadpick up from Oct. p15


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The IEEE & NewJersey Instituteof TechnologyAnnouncePartnership

Piscataway, NJ. 5 December 2000. IEEEand the New Jersey Institute of Technol-ogy’s (NJIT) Division of Continuing Pro-fessional Education have announced apartnership designed to promote and en-courage continuing education and profes-sionaldevelopmentamongIEEEmembers.

IEEE members who enroll in NJIT dis-tance learning courses via the IEEE web siteat http://www.ieee.org/eab/PDI/NJITcourses/index.htm will re-ceive a 10% discount off the price of tuition.The NJIT enrollment site joins the IEEEProfessional Development Institute (IEEEPDI),gatewaywebsite to life-long learning.

NJIT has been recognized by The Na-tional Science Foundation as a leader in thedevelopment of engineering education forthe 21st century. It provides the flexibilitythat IEEE members need, offering distancelearning as well as traditional site instruc-tion. The IEEE member discount is applica-ble only to the distance learning programs.For more specific information on NJIT’scurrent array of graduate, undergraduate,and certificate-bearing courses and degrees,visit their website at www.njit.edu/DL/.

“The IEEE is dedicated to providing itsmembers access to high-quality educationprograms designed to promote their tech-nical vitality and advance their careers,”said Lyle Feisel, Vice President of theIEEE Educational Activities Board. “Weare happy that NJIT has joined the IEEEPDI roster and encourage all interestedIEEE members to explore NJIT’s well re-spected academic programs and courses.”

“We are delighted to be able to offerour courses to IEEE members at this spe-cial rate,” said Dr. Gale Tenen Spak, As-sociate Vice-President of Continuing andDistance Education at NJIT. “The breadthof courses available from NJIT allows en-gineers to acquire the skills needed to shiftto fields with better employment pros-pects, to enter newly emerging cross-dis-

cipline fields, or to explore ones thatmatch their maturing interests.”

About NJITNew Jersey Institute of Technology has

long been a leader in the use of varied deliv-ery options for reaching the distance learn-ing student. Capitalizing on almost 20 yearsof experience in delivery of distance learn-ing courses and its in-house technical exper-tise, computing prowess, and television andmultimedia studios, NJIT holds a continu-ally growing inventory of internally-pro-duced distance learning courses that numberover 150 and employs two major methodol-ogies to bring engineering, computer sci-ence, management, mathematics,chemistry, physics, and other technical sub-ject to student’s homes, to professional’sdesktops, and to the classroom of collegestudents as well as K-12 students. Theircommitment to and support of distancelearning education had contributed to theirreceiving recognition from Yahoo! InternetLife for three years in a row as America’sMost Wired Public University.

For more information seehttp://cpe.njit.edu.

For more information, please contactFor NJIT: Shelly Zimmerman, Director

of Development and Marketing, Divisionof Continuing Professional Education.E-mail: [email protected].

For IEEE: Alan Trembly, Manager, Busi-ness Development, [email protected]

The IEEE &United StatesOpen UniversityAnnouncePartnership

PISCATAWAY, NJ. 27 November2000 IEEE and United States Open Uni-versity (USOU) today announced a part-nership designed to promote and encouragecontinuing education and professional de-velopment among IEEE members.

IEEE members who enroll in USOUdistance learning courses and degree pro-grams via the IEEE web site atwww.ieee.org/pdi/open will receive a 10%

discount off the price of tuition. The USOUenrollment site joins the IEEE ProfessionalDevelopment Institute (IEEE PDI), gate-way website to life-long learning.

USOU, a new, non-profit university,has been established to meet the needs ofstudents whose schedules and commit-ments prevent them from attending a tra-ditional campus. Dedicated to reducingthe barriers to education it combines con-venience and flexibility with faculty sup-port and multimedia course materials. Tofind out more about USOU, seehttp://www.open.edu. Spring 2001 regis-tration is now under way.

“The IEEE is dedicated to providing itsmembers access to high quality-educationprograms designed to promote their tech-nical vitality and advance their careers,”said Lyle Feisel, Vice President of theIEEE Educational Activities Board. “Weare happy that USOU has joined the IEEEPDI roster and encourage all interestedIEEE members to explore USOU’s pro-grams and courses.”

“For busy working professionals,USOU offers the opportunity to continueyour education without having to meetthe demands of a fixed classroom sched-ule,” said Dr Richard Jarvis, Chancellorof USOU. “With single courses that canhelp enhance work skills to professionaldegree programs, we are delighted to jointhe IEEE PDI roster and look forward tomeeting the needs of IEEE members.”

About USOUUnited States Open University is the

sister institution of The Open University,chartered over 30 years ago in the UnitedKingdom. Recognized as the world’sleader in part-time education and trainingfor working adults, The Open Universityhas become a model for distance learningprograms throughout the work. For moreinformation see http://www.open.edu.

For more information, please contact:

For USOU: Josephine Feldman, Dep-uty to the Chancellor for External Rela-tions, [email protected]

For IEEE: Alan Trembly, EAB Man-ager , Business Development ,[email protected]


39th Annual InternationalReliability Physics Symposium

Plan to attend the 39th IRPS at the Wyndham Palace Resort in Orlando, Florida, April 30- May 3, 2001 !

The IRPS promotes the reliability and performance of integrated circuits and microelectronic assemblies through animproved understanding of failure mechanisms in the user’s environment. This year’s symposium will also stress prod-uct reliability as well as high speed and MEMs devices.

Started in the early 1960’s by the military and aerospace community, the IRPS’s sponsorship moved to the IEEE in1967, when its scope expanded to commercial integrated circuits. As the premier symposium for reliability, the IRPSprovides an open and professional forum dedicated to progress in the areas of:

� Reliability implications of integrated circuit scaling

� Failure and degradation mechanisms of microelectronic devices

� Correlation of reliability with the properties of electronic materials

� Reliability optimization by circuit design, modeling, and simulation

Highlights of the Symposium in 2001:

� Technical Program: keynote presentation, a new panel discussion, and high-quality, carefully selected andpeer-reviewed technical presentations.

� Tutorials and Workshops: a highly diverse collection of cutting-edge and debatable topics, which represent one ofthe major elements of the technical program for most attendees.

� Equipment Demonstrations: as always, a technically oriented forum allowing attendees to try-out newequipment hands-on.

� Social and Networking Events: Incredible networking opportunities for all participants, including a Tuesdayreception and a Wednesday awards luncheon.

For further information, please contact:

Anthony S. Oates, 2001 IRPS General Chair, Lucent Technologies, 9333 South John Young Parkway, Orlando, FL32819, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Edward I. Cole Jr., 2001 IRPS Publicity Chair, Sandia National Laboratories, 1515 Eubank SE, MS 1081, Albuquer-que, NM 87185-1081, USA, E-mail: [email protected]

Or visit the IRPS web page at: www.irps.org, which includes the latest on IRPS 2000 and information (proceedings,CDROMs, video tapes) from past symposia.

We look forward to welcoming you at the 2001 IRPS!

ReliabilitySociety


Technical Magazine SectionTHE STATUS OF RELIABILITY ENGINEERINGTECHNOLOGY 2001A Report to the IEEE Reliability Society

Compiled by Christian K. Hansen, Ph.D.Chair, Reliability Methodology CommitteeE-Mail: [email protected]

IntroductionThis report is compiled annually for

the IEEE Reliability Society. Its purposeis to discuss current issues in reliabilityand related fields, and to identify possibletrends for the future. The report is basedon input submitted by technical commit-tees of the society, by statements ob-tained from experts in the field, from thecurrent technical literature, and from in-formation published on the World WideWeb. The topics are chosen based ontheir significance, but are also limited bythe type of input received. The editor wel-comes additional comments or discus-sion of issues of concern or importance totoday’s active reliability engineers. Inputmay be submitted at any time to ChristianK. Hansen at the following [email protected].

ISO 9000The next generation of ISO 9000 se-

ries standards, the year 2000 revision,was released during fall 2000, represent-ing a major revision of the 1994 edition.The most radical change involves themerging of the ISO 9001, 9002, 9003 intoone single document. Critics of the 1994edition have raised concerns about theexisting documents being too cumber-some, calling for changes to the 2000 edi-tions aimed at making the standards moreuser-friendly. The ISO 9000 family nowcomprises only three documents, 9000:Fundamentals and Vocabulary, 9001:Requirements and 9004: Guidelines forPerformance Improvements.

Parallel to the developments of the ge-neric ISO 9000 family, specific develop-ments of three industry-specific derivativeshave taken place. QS 9000, the quality stan-

dard for the automotive industry developedby theUS“big-three”,Ford,GMandChrys-ler (now Daimler-Chrysler) is expected tobeadapted into the international standardTS16949, which harmonizes the requirementsof QS 9000 with the standards of the Euro-pean auto-makers VDA 6.1 (Germany) andEAQF (France) AVSQ (Italy). The global-ization of the auto industry has intensifiedthe demand for more uniform standards.

AS 9000, the aerospace industry deriva-tiveof ISO9000 isanticipated tobe replacedby AS9100 and EN 9100 (an identical Euro-pean version). The AS9100/EN9100 docu-ments are now available in final draft, andadd a significant number of additional itemsto AS9000 (e.g. related to configurationmanagement). The new document has thesupport of Boeing and some of the majorEuropean aerospace companies.

TL 9000, the quality standard for thetelecommunications industry, is the latestof the three industry specific standards.The newly released standard is based ofthe 1994 edition of ISO 9001. The QuEstforum, a partnership of Telecommunica-tions suppliers which developed the firstedition of the standard, is currently work-ing on a revision that will reflect the 2000edition of ISO 9001.

Current information about the statusof ISO 9000 and related standards areavailable from the ISO web sitehttp://www.iso.ch/.

Human Interface TechnologyDuring recent years, the IEEE-RS Hu-

man Interface Technology Committeehas played an active role in promoting thestudy and education of the very importantfield of reliability that deals with humaninterfaces. Contributor Ken LaSala re-

ports that recent research in this area hasfocused on especially air traffic controlenvironments and other control situa-tions. A topic that has become popular re-cently has been “situation awareness,”i.e. how to make a human adequatelyaware of the surrounding situation.

The Human Factors Research Labora-tory, School of Naval Architecture andOcean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao TongUniversity, China recently completed re-search work on the design of human com-puter interface (HCI) of the control systemin the Cheng Dao oil field, contributor YiHong reports. The design was guided bythe consideration of human reliability, es-pecially with respect to information transi-tion and past experience. The project fullyconsidered human cognitive character insuch facets as task distribution, structuredesign, and information display methods. Ithas been reported that this approach notonly decreases the overall failure probabil-ity, but also reduces the workload on theoperator. This study makes a first step intothe research of the quantitative analysis ofHCI information, some new views are pro-posed on the introduction of informationentropy into the quantitative analysis of theoperating complexity of HCI. The labora-tory is performing research work on the hu-man reliability-oriented design of shipnavigation control rooms. To support theresearch work on this project, the labora-tory is building a multitask simulation testconsole, Hong reports.

Some elements of Human InterfaceTechnology have been published in theform of ISO13407: Human-Centered De-sign Processes for Interactive Systems, anew standard enacted on June 1, 1999 cen-tered around the following key content ar-


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eas: Human-centered Processes, DesignProcesses, Interactive Systems (which mustbe computerized). According to contributorTakehesa Kohda, the motivation for thisstandard is that technology-centered designhas been shown to be insufficient to addressmodern, complex human-machine systems.For example, humans have caused severeaccidents in advanced human-machine sys-tems such as airplanes and nuclear plants.The principles of Human-Centered Designare: (1) Active participation of users, (2) Ap-propriate task allocation between users andtechnology, (3) Repetition of design processby feedback, and (4) Design based onmulti-domain disciplines. Human-centereddesign activities are composed of: (1) theunderstanding and the specification of thecontext of use, (2) the specification of theuser and the organizational requirements,(3) the production of design solutions, and(4) the evaluation of the design against therequirements. These activities should con-tinue until the design satisfies the require-ments. The use of ISO13497, according toKohda, should improve the safety and reli-ability of human-interface technology.

As in past years, the U.S. Federal Avia-tion Administration (FAA) continues tohave a strong program in human factors, Dr.LaSala reports. The ultimate objective is im-proving human-machine interfaces and,consequently, operator reliability. The prin-cipal FAA program is the ACT-530 Opera-tions Concept Research Program, whichexamines longer-term issues and conceptsthat relate to human performance in the Na-tional Airspace System. This program de-velops measurement tools and methods thatare being used to evaluate new proceduresand hardware as the system evolves towardsthe 21st Century. This program also exam-ines organizational concepts that maximizeemployee productivity, improve trainingconcepts and methods, reduces stressfulwork environments, and minimize errors.This program conducts basic research in airtraffic control and airway facilities domains,see http://www.tc.faa.gov/act-500/hfl/opsconcept.htm for more information.Described below are several important fac-ets of the program.

■ Controller Visual Scanning. Controllervisual scanning is a potential source ofhuman error. The Research Develop-ment & Human Factors Laboratory uses

state-of-the-art eye-tracking equipmentto evaluate controller scanning behaviorand the impact of new displays on con-troller scanning behavior.

■ Controller Performance and WorkloadMeasurement. Researchers designed anew performance rating form forover-the-shoulder observational evalua-tions. Form designers assessed reliabilityand validity against objective systemmeasures in real-time simulations.

■ Human Factors Design Guide. Theprogram produced a comprehensiveset of human factors guidelines for AFapplications. The AF Human FactorsDesign Guide provides an exhaustivecompilation of human factor designpractices and principles integral to theprocurement, design, development,and testing of FAA systems, facilities,and equipment. It primarily focuses onFAA ground systems, such as thosethat are managed by AF, but it hasgeneral applicability.

■ Auditory Alarms. The program is con-ducting an auditory symbology study toreview alerting and status sounds nowused in AF equipment. Over 80 alarmshave been digitally recorded and ana-lyzed for their sound characteristics.Further research is underway to evalu-ate the urgency of the alarms, developsamples of new alarm sounds, and cre-ate human factors recommendations forthe use of alarms in FAA systems.

■ Symbology. The FAA is conductingseveral studies on symbols and iconsrepresenting AF facilities and equip-ment. The goal is to develop a stan-dard set of visual symbols and colorcodes that will be used on new dis-plays. Human factors recommenda-tions will be developed for the use ofsound in new systems.

■ Voice Technology. There are severalprojects using voice recognition andproduction technologies in the AF en-vironment. AF specialists recentlyviewed demonstrat ions of avoice-controlled oscilloscope, elec-tronic mail, and a weather program. Astudy evaluation used a voice-con-trolled laptop computer that guided atechnician through a maintenance pro-cedure using synthesized voice. Labo-ratory personnel are evaluating further

applications of voice technology indifferent environments.The U.S. National Aeronautics &

Space Administration (NASA) HumanFactors Research and Technology Divi-sion continues its active research and de-velopment program. Provided below is asample of the division’s recent accom-plishments (ref: http://olias.arc.nasa.gov/reports/index.html.)■ Making Human-Machine System Simu-

lation a Practical Engineering Tech-nique. NASA has constructed aframework for modeling human opera-tors (APEX) that combines a set of hu-man cognitive and motor resources witha flexible planning system for action se-lection. This architecture addressesthree main challenges. First, it must beable to predict design-relevant aspectsof human performance such as de-sign-induced operator error. Second, itshould be usable in typically complexand dynamic environments such as airtraffic control and flight deck operation,not just in controlled laboratory-like en-vironments. Third, applying the frame-work to a new design problem must notrequire excessive time or expertise.

■ Air Traffic Controller Performance inSimulated Free Flight. The NASA AmesCognition Laboratory has undertaken aseries of experiments to determine empir-ically whether controller situation aware-ness is hindered by the loss of trafficconstraints under free flight. The resultsshow that the time to find conflicts isstrongly affected by traffic load, by con-flict geometry, and time to conflict. Thestudy showed that performance deterio-rated as the number of planes increased,but there was little or no impact of thepresence or absence of restrictions.NASA found some evidence that remov-ing altitude restrictions has a modest neg-ative impact on performance, butremoving route restrictions consistentlyfailed to produce any significant impacton performance. Free flight showed nosignificant performance decrements,whether or not the system used asymbology that showed the direction ofaircraft track.

■ Detecting and Correcting Errors inFlight. A simulator study was con-ducted to gain a fuller understanding of


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factors that contribute to monitoringand challenging errors. This study ex-amined two potential causal factors: (a)level of risk in a developing situationand (b) degree of “face threat” involvedin challenging an error. This study hasidentified situations that might occurduring real flights and pose a threat tosafety if not corrected. Based on this in-formation, training programs can de-velop intervention skills, especially infirst officers, that are most effective inproducing corrective actions, thus en-hancing flight safety.Also, a significant study of human per-

formance in software development hastaken place at the University of Maryland,where researcher Carol Smidts has devel-oped a stochastic model which relate hu-man errors committed during softwaredevelopment and debugging activities tothe software failure intensity function.Other areas that seem relatively untouchedby human interface research include infor-mation technology systems and processesand biomedical technologies, especiallycomputer-assisted surgery. Informationtechnology is becoming extensively perva-sive, is evolving rapidly, and is affectingboth basic business operations and specificoperational tasks. Systematic considerationof participating humans generally is lack-ing in the development of information tech-nology systems. Dr. LaSala views theseareas as excellent opportunities for futureresearch.

Software Reliability

Y2K After ThoughtsThe Year 2000 problem (Y2K) is un-

doubtedly the most commonly known ex-ample of a software reliability problem.The last several editions of this report con-tained discussions on this subject quotingvarious estimates for the impacts and finan-cial costs of fixing the bug. In a post-mor-tem analysis, one may note that the impactof Y2K was less than forecasted, however,this should be viewed as an underestimateof the effectiveness of the InformationTechnology (IT) staff and programmersworking to fix the problem, rather than anunderestimate of the seriousness of theproblem itself. The estimated cost of fixingY2K worldwide has been reported to ex-ceed 100B USD. Hopefully, IT people

have learned from this traumatic experi-ence. Y2K has also sensitized the generalpublic to the greater potential impact ofsoftware failures.Critical Areas of Deployment and Prob-lem Sources

Y2K is just one example of how soft-ware intertwines and envelops our lives.Software is an integral part of our cars, ourappliances, our homes and our stores. Con-tributor Sam Keene has been involved in allaspects of software reliability over severaldecades, and has made many significantcontributions to the research in this area.According to Dr. Keene, we now have anInformation Technology layer that sur-rounds our life and which we depend upon.Internet use is pervasive and growing. TheInternet related companies have rocketedin value over the past several years. Alaska,Colorado, Maryland, Utah and NewHampshire have between 41% and 52% oftheir population on-line. When the Internetworks, it multiplies our effectiveness. Butwhen it fails, we are left hapless.

Our offices, businesses and personallives depend upon computer communica-tions. We feel stranded when that serviceis not available, even for short periods.The most notorious outage may be the18-hour outage experienced by AOL us-ers in August 1996 [1]. This resulted froman undetected operator error occurringduring a software upgrade. The cause offailure was initially thought to be solelydue to the upgrade. This confounding ofevents misled the analysts tracking theproblem. Thus 18 hours were required toisolate and correct the problem.

More importantly, many of our com-mon services depend upon computer con-trollers and communications. Thisincludes power distribution, telephone,water supply, sewage disposal, financialtransactions, as well as web communica-tions. Shocks to these services disrupt ourway of life in our global economy. We aredependent on these services being up andfunctioning. Dr. Keene has identified thefollowing list of critical and intertwiningIT services that envelop our lives, eitherdirectly or indirectly:■ Nuclear power■ Medical equipment and devices■ Traffic control (air, train, drive-by-

wire automobiles, traffic control lights)

■ Environmental impact areas (e.g.,smoke stack filtration)

■ Business enterprise (paperless sys-tems)

■ Financial systems■ Common services (water, sewer, com-

munications)■ Missile and weapons systems■ Remote systems (space, undersea, po-

lar cap, mountain top)■ Transportation (autos, planes, sub-

ways, elevators, etc.)As sources of several significant soft-

ware problems, Dr. Keene has identifiedthe following list:Software exception code

The main line code usually does its job.Breakdowns typically occur when the soft-ware exception code does not properly han-dle abnormal input or environmentalconditions—or when an interface doesn’trespond in the anticipated or desired man-ner. The infamous “Malfunction 54” of theTherac 25 radiation therapy machine friedsome patients because the software controlsdid not successfully interlock the high-en-ergy operating system mode. This allowedpatients to be exposed to potentially lethalradiation levels.■ System Management problems.

The major cause of software or systemproblems lies in System Managementproblems. These are requirement deficien-cies or interface defects. The Martian probefailed in the fall of 1999 [2]. This failurewas due to system management problems.There was a breakdown in communica-tions between the propulsion engineers andthe navigation scientists, at a critical pointin the design cycle. The newspaper head-lines publicized another program commu-nication problem. NASA and its contractorhad unconsciously commingled metric andBritish dimensional units. The resultingtower of Babel situation helped misguidethe $125 million dollar space probe.

System Management problems aretruly communication problems. In the ex-perience of Dr. Keene, for the most part,today’s hardware is reliable and capable.Almost all significant system problemsare traceable to a communications break-down or too limited design perspectiveon the programmer or designer’s part.■ Small changes can have grave conse-

quence.


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There is significant error proneness inmaking small code changes[3]:

Defect rate: 1 line 50%5 lines 75%20 lines 35%

The defects here are any code changethat results in anomalous code behavior,i.e., changes causing the code to fail. Of-ten, small changes are not given enoughrespect. They are not sufficiently ana-lyzed or tested.

For example, signaling systems atDSC Communications Corporation(Plano, Texas) were at the heart of an un-usual cluster of phone outages over atwo-month period of time. These disrup-tions followed a minor software modifi-cation. The Wall Street Journal reported,“Three tiny bits of information in a hugeprogram that ran several million lineswere set incorrectly, omitting algorithms– computation procedures – that wouldhave stopped the communication systemfrom becoming congested with mes-sages. Engineers decided that because thechange was minor, the massive programwould not have to undergo the rigorous13 week (regression) test that most soft-ware is put through before it is shipped tothe customer” [4,5]. That was a mistake.

The Ariane 4 code worked fine, but it didnot scale up satisfactorily to Ariane 5.Ariane 5 design changes were not properlyhandled by the original code. This is an ex-ample of using Commercial Off-The-Shelfcode (COTS). Reusing COTS code is an in-creasingly popular way to reduce develop-ment cost and time. The code does not haveto be reinvented, but it needs to be fully ana-lyzed and tested for its new application, pay-ing particular attention to any changes in thehardware or the system from its predecessorapplication.

Software reliability, especially thesystem management problem, is the longpole in the tent for developing new sys-tems. It impacts development time, costand system reliability.

Proactive System Reliability Initiatives

Understanding the nature of softwarereliability problems can greatly reduce theimpact and extent of those problems. Dr.Keene identifies the following general ar-eas of Proactive Reliability Initiatives:

■ Maintaining strong and systematic fo-cus on requirement development, val-idat ion, and traceabi l i ty withparticular emphasis on System Man-agement aspects.

■ Planning backup and contingent capa-bilities for critical failure events.

■ Studying “near misses” to further un-derstand how to prevent or mitigatefailures, just like we do today in air-craft near misses.

■ Institutionalizing a “lessons learned”database and using it to mitigate po-tential failures during the design pro-cess.

■ Performing potential failure modes andeffects analyses (FMEA) to hardensystems against abnormal conditions.

■ Performing root cause failure analysisto trace problems down to the underly-ing cause.

■ Leveraging discovered failures usingthe Defect Prevention Process, as it islabeled by IBM [6].

■ Studying and profiling the most sig-nificant failures.

■ Understanding the constructs that al-lowed the failure to happen.

■ Developing more effective testingtechniques to cover the extensivenumber of program paths covering thepossible input conditions.

■ Thinking defensively by examininghow the code handles inappropriateinputs, and designing to mitigate theseconditions.

■ Performing fault injection into sys-tems, as part of system development,in order to speed the maturity of thesoftware diagnostic and fault handlingcapability.

■ Building in diagnostic capability. Sys-tems’ vulnerability is an evidence ofomissions in designs and implementa-tions.

■ Designing in opportunistic times to re-start, and refresh the software duringits deployment.

Future ChallengesThe biggest development challenge,

according to Dr. Keene, may well be im-proving our test capability to deal withthe burgeoning amount of high functioncode (object oriented) that is being devel-oped. Testing such code, with its explo-

sive number of operating paths, is a greatchallenge. Because of this, safety criticalcode will probably be developed usingmore formal methods or clean-room pro-cesses. This development method testsand assures the contingent path condi-tions as the code is developed. The codeand the checking and exception handlingare developed simultaneously.

Where the world is most weak is not inthe random failure modes but in the possibil-ityofanorganizedattackdirectedatnations’(or companies’) economic, environmentalor enterprise systems. It is conceivable that awell-organized attack could defeat the re-dundancies. This means that the potentialthreatof terrormustalsobeconsidered in thedevelopment of 21st century systems.

Mission critical systems will demandbroader attention be paid to all system as-pects. The notion of reliability, or more tothe point, the definition of failure will ex-pand. Precluding failures will include man-aging system security, robustness, safety,data privacy, fault mitigation and recovery.The greater reach of software and systems,into the critical areas of our lives, will de-mand more internal “mistake proofing” andhardening against adverse external factors.System users will increasingly demand theirsystems behave better (less damaging andeasier to recover) under failure conditions.How gracefully critical systems fail will beas important as how much functionality theyprovide. This will be an exciting challengefor those people like Dr. Keene who willhelp carry out and facilitate this role.

Mechanical ReliabilityMechanical reliability engineering is be-

coming increasingly important, particularlyas it relates to the development of Mi-cro-components, according to contributorDick Doyle. Both Micro-Mechanical andMicro-Electromechanical Systems(MEMS) are being developed for diverseapplications. This new use of micro-prod-ucts requires high reliability, while just theopposite is being observed. Actually, manyof these new products are not providing thedesired or expected reliability, Doyle re-ports. This makes it necessary to implementReliability-by-Design for these new items.

The purpose of a Micro-MechanicalReliability analysis is to provide a realisticestimate of the reliability of a very small


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part. This estimate may be used as a basisfor reliability improvements through de-sign changes or to predict if the desired re-liability of the system has been achieved.It is difficult to establish a good estimate ofreliability without an organized andproper approach. This requires all of thetechniques available in classical reliabilityanalysis including: determining the loads,performing mechanical stress analysis,determining failure modes, and recom-mending design changes.

As the analysis progresses, one shouldreevaluate reliability goals and modifythe Micro-Mechanical design to ensurethat these goals are met. If the product cannot be modified, then the prediction pro-vides the best estimate of the expectedlife and reliability of the Micro-Mechani-cal system.

Examples of micro devices include:Transducers, sensors, springs, bearings,gears, sieves, magnetic devices and mo-tors. The predicted reliability values shallbe calculated for all major components inthe system. The individual part failurerate is determined using classical me-chanical reliability predictions. If test re-sults are available, this provides the bestreliability estimate and a mechanicalstress analysis will provide appropriateparametric tradeoffs. The component re-liability values are combined using seriesor parallel redundancy depending on thedesign. This will provide the predictedreliability values for the Micro-Mechani-cal system.

Environmental conditions are criticalfor Micro-Mechanical devices. This in-cludes such influences as moisture, tem-perature, thermal stresses, mechanicalshock and vibration. For vibration, it maybe necessary to provide a strong support,including a three point (or more) mount-ing. It may be that HALT testing providesthe highest loads. If failures continue tooccur, changing the design may be a solu-tion. Or it may be necessary to obtainhigher strength materials.

Micro parts will be found in a growingnumber of applications, Doyle predicts.Some examples of areas/industries with pres-ent applications of micro devices include:■ Medical Field.

Implants for administering medicine.Sensing nerve signals. Measuring and

monitoring body functions. Electrical andoptical probes. Micro-Sieves are used forscreening DNA from blood samples.■ Automotive Industry.

Micro-G sensors are used in determiningwhen to actuate air bags. Magnetic, chemi-cal, electrical, thermal, and other sensors areused to measure the performance of the en-gine and to adjust operating conditions tobest meet the requirements of the drive.■ Space Applications.

Many specialized applications are re-quired in operating satellites in space; foruse in Television transmission, Weathermeasurement, determining Ocean andAtmospheric conditions, and sensors fordeep space.■ Aircraft Industry

The development of personal enter-tainment centers for each passenger andthe necessity for more automation in thecockpit requires many advanced microdevices.

New CAD/CAE TechnologiesTechnologies are available now that can

greatly enhance the health status knowledgeof a complex system. Reported by contribu-tor Dennis Hoffmann, Prognostics & HealthManagement (PHM) is the term used to de-scribe this technology. PHM is described byHoffmann as the “next generation” ap-proach to system maintenance and healthmanagement, and a comprehensive ap-proach for detecting and isolating failures aswell as predicting remaining useful life forcritical components. PHM is a hierarchicaldistribution of data collection and informa-tion management elements, both on-boardand off-board a system, that make maxi-mum use of conventional failure symp-tom-detecting techniques combined withadvanced software modeling to achieve ex-cellent failure detection and isolation withzero false alarms. PHM also collects andprocesses performance information on criti-cal components to enable prediction of re-maining useful life for those components.The information processed and managedon-board a complex system enhances theoperator’s knowledge of remaining capabil-ities in the event of malfunction and, at thesame time, triggers Autonomic Logisticsprocesses by relaying failure information tothe home base. Autonomic Logistics is theconcept of automating previously labor-in-

tensive activities such as maintenance,spares, and transportation management. Theuse of on-board processing resources, cou-pled with an Autonomic Logistics system,provides operational and support cost sav-ings over legacy systems while providingsuperb system management capabilities.Hoffmann gives several examples of appli-cations as described below.

Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin’sproposals for the next generation fighteraircraft, the Joint Strike Fighter, includePHM capabilities integrated within theirdesigns. PHM as a function touches ev-ery element of the aircraft in some way.The PHM development approach is to de-sign for excellent diagnostics, supple-ment the diagnostics with reasoning toenhance failure detection and isolation,and selectively acquire performance datafor equipment to predict remaining life.

Cummins Engine Co. Inc. has unveiled anew engine, that is a product of a totally inte-grated approach to engine design calculatedto improve everything from manufacturingto maintenance. The engine has an elec-tronic controller that is a full-function com-puter that delivers diagnostic, prognostic,and reporting capabilities. Service techni-cians can diagnose performance problemsas well as calculate how long to stretchmaintenance intervals safely. The controllercompares data received to what a “normal”reading would be and if it notes anything outof the ordinary, it stores that information.Customers can literally see how the engineis being operated and plan for maintenancewhen it’s least disruptive, thus reducing un-scheduled downtime. Capabilities includeadvanced prognostics and diagnostics, withindustry-standard data-links for uploadingand downloading of use information andreconfiguring parameters. It provides a“window” where real-time engine perfor-mance data (such as fuel consumption, idletime, fault codes, and maintenance remind-ers) can be viewed.

Another technology enhancement de-scribed by Dennis Hoffmann is a methodcalled REBAM® that is available fromBently Nevada Corporation. This methodallows vibration measurements taken di-rectly at a bearing outer ring. This directmeasurement greatly enhances bearing vi-bration data. The REBAM® system pro-vides a simpler and more direct method for


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determining rolling element bearing condi-tion with the added capability to also moni-tor the machine’s condition.

Device and ProductDesign

Process optimization techniques areemployed in the design of present state ofthe art bulk silicon DRAM technology,contributor Bill Tonti reports. Numerousissues influence a MOSFETs in-line pro-cess and field reliability. Assuring a sta-ble IC design is a great challenge, and hasmany concerns with today’s small featuresize. Some of these are investigated usingpresent DRAM technology.

Inclusion of process tolerances andlifetime shifts during the design of aDRAM transfer device greatly influ-ences the MOSFETs performance andreliability operating point. Given an ap-propriate relationship for each occur-rence a statistical design methodologyinsures product stability. The deviceoff-current (Iso) and on-current (Ion)trade-off are the primary design goals of agiven technology. Simple scaling (i.e.,I T L V I Aeon ox t so

v Bt∝ ∝ −( / ) , )/ ) shows

L and Tox can be used to improve drivecurrent. If nothing else is done, then Vtand subsequently Iso suffers. Well dopingmay be increased to compensate for thereduction in Tox and L. This adjustmentcould lead to a large increase in base Vttolerance, source to substrate sensitivity,and substrate hot carrier problems if notimplemented in a manner, which mini-mizes these adverse effects. There existsan optimum doping profile which satis-fies the above conditions, Dr. Tonti re-ports. Today’s state-of-the-art isolationtechnology is box shaped, and commonlyimplemented as a trench filled with SiO2.This isolation tends to have a parasiticparallel device gated at the isolationedges. In some cases Iso may be definedby the number of edges in a design ratherthan the total device width. Edge degra-dation therefore becomes a mechanism tobe investigated in this type of isolationtechnology. Wafer-level burn-in andmodule-level burn-in test methodologiesare important early life screens used toimprove the overall yield by replacingcircuit reliability failures with knowngood spare elements.

Contributor Wayne Ellis reports on theissue of Functional Reliability addressed inthe realm of high performance DRAMproduct design and development. Insightsinto defects, their distribution and activationenergies have been applied to the designmethodologies for today’s advancedDRAM products. These methods seek to re-duce product sensitivities to the most com-mon defect species, such as use of redundantelements for the DRAM array and use of re-laxed design ground rules for the supportcircuits where the concept of a redundant el-ement is more problematic in it’s implemen-tation, Dr. Ellis explains. However, theconcern for the support circuits is moderatedby at least two complimentary effects. Thefirst is that the density of defects falls off asx-3 as defect size increases above the mini-mum printable dimension of the litho-graphic tools in the fabricator. The secondeffect is the increasing amount of defect in-duced leakage current needed to disrupt op-eration of the more robust support circuits.

Functional reliability issues relate to suchelectrical issues as noises in the chip power/gnd grid, precision timing circuits and delaystability in the presence of process paramet-ric variations. Another aspect is how devicescalingand the required reductionof internaloperating voltages is affected by the externaloperating/interface voltages defined by in-ternational standardsbodies suchasJEDEC.This dictates that the internal operating volt-ages and resulting device design point mustbe developed with consideration of externalvoltage and the electrical impedance charac-teristics of product package and the on-chipvoltage regulation system and power grid.

New IEC Standards on SystemSafety

Historical disasters such as the poisoningat Bhopal, India and the destruction of nu-clear reactors at Three Mile Island andChernobyl have indicated the need for amore thorough assessment of the safety ofprocess control plants. Contributors JohnPeter Rooney and Yoshinobu Sato report in-dependently on the significance of the up-date of two international standards related toSafety Management. IEC 61511 FunctionalSafety: Safety Instrumented Systems (SISs)for the Process Industrial Sector and IEC61508 Functional Safety-Safety RelatedSystems are being developed by the task

force of IEC/TC65/65A to deal with the in-tensified need for safety in process control.Historically, ISA S84.01, Applications ofSafety Instrumented Systems for the ProcessIndustries pre-dates IEC 61508 by a fewmonths. Both ISA 84.01 and IEC 61508 aresimilar in requiring the quantitative assess-ment of Safety Integrity Levels (SILs) forSafety Instrumented Systems (SIS). IEC61508 has four different SILs, while ISAS84.01 covers the various operations in onlythree SILs.

Both standards are largely devoted tothe calculation of SIL numbers for the de-signs of Safety Instrumented Systems,the shut down systems for plants that canbe dangerous. The demand for safety inprocess control by the fifteen member na-tions of the European Union appears to bethe chief reason that these standards arereceiving so much attention at this time.

The chief purpose of both standards isa quantitative assessment of the risk in-herent in an industrial process, emphasiz-ing the safety shut down systems.Industrial processes range from the largerefineries that convert or “crack” crudeoil into petroleum products used to heatour houses and run our automobiles, tofood processing plants which convert to-matoes to the ketchup we use on millionsof hamburgers.

Both revised standards are expected tobe issued by fall 2000 for committee draftvoting (CDV). Contributor YoshinobuSato estimates that the standards could beapproved as international standards bythe end of 2001.

In the reliability and safety engineer-ing, electronics and computer-based ap-proaches are becoming more commonevery year, and are more commonly be-ing applied to critical systems includingautomated transportation and lifelines,according to Sato. He reports that the cur-rent trend in safety is leaving the classicalapproaches of component-related way ofthinking and is moving toward the mod-ern approach by means of systems safetyintegrity in context of the full lifecycle ofthe system. Thus, both of the interna-tional standards mentioned above havedual frameworks of safety integrity levels(SILs) and of functional safety assess-ment. The former is required to be givento SRSs, whereas the latter to be carried


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out by independent assessors over allphases of safety lifecycle.

The IEC 61508/61511 standards do notgive any written instructions for certifyingthe SILs and/or assessors. However, it isself-evident that both of them must havesome kind of qualifications by third-sectorbodies. As the matter of fact, TUV ProductService has already begun to certify theSILs of components of SRSs like program-mable logic controllers (PLCs) and smarttransmitters. But their business does notcover the SILs of entire SRSs yet. A newcertification program called CertifiedSafety Engineer has been initiated by TUVto work where functional safety assessors(engineers) are qualified.

In the UK, CASS Scheme Limited offers5 types of assessment covering 16 phases ofthe safety lifecycle. Here, certification bod-ies allow only registered CASS assessors toconduct functional safety assessment. Theseindividuals are supposed to be industrial ex-perts who are required to attend a 5-daytraining course, examination and interview.This system draws heavily on the compe-tency study document, which was recentlypublished by IEE/BCS.

In the USA, Factory Mutual (FM) isalso certifying components of SRSs(SISs) in compliance with IEC 61508.Both FM and TUV have an agreement towork jointly for certification. In Japan, afew companies have begun preparing thebusiness both in certifying SILs and in of-fering hazard & risk analyses related tofunctional safety assessment. Thus, it isexpected that reliability- and systemsafety engineering will be more tightlyconnected in the 21st century.

John P. Rooney reports on standards de-manding more detailed Failure Modes andEffects Analyses (FMEAs), and on the sug-gested use of Markov methods to model theoperation of the safety related system. Fur-ther, there is renewed emphasis on more ac-curate reliability predictions, since it isgenerally the predicted failure rate that is di-vided among the modes deemed dangerousby the FMEA. The approach in IEC 61508evolved from the requirements of FMEAsfrom the venerable MIL-STD-1629A: Pro-cedures for Performing a Failure Mode AndEffect Analysis for Shipboard Equipment.The new millennium safety requirementsnecessitate a method called Failure Modes

and Effects, Diagnostic Analysis, FMEDA.The FMEDA requires the identification offour device failure modes:

■ Failed Safe Detected

■ Failed Safe Undetected

■ Failed Dangerous Detected

■ Failed Dangerous Undetected.

Logically, the goal is to eliminate or min-imize the number of failure modes, whichare Dangerous and Undetected by the over-all system. Rooney reports that, in recentwork on designs for safety related systems,he, as a reliability practitioner, encounteredsome concrete problems in the implementa-tion of the standards. Included in this experi-ence has been the usual and mundane task ofscheduling and running FMEAs when theentire staff is overworked and facing an un-reasonable (to them) completion deadline.There has, however, also been an unusual(for engineers) misunderstanding of the dif-ference between the accuracy and precisioninherent in reliability predictions. Far too of-ten, the number of figures beyond the deci-mal point, the precision, has confused thereport recipient who was truly concernedwith the accuracy of the prediction. Wheninformed that apredictedMTBFof tenyearsmay be as high as 30 years, actual, in thefield, those seeking extremely accurate val-ues for the probability of an event wereabashed. In addition, when applying failuremodes to complex integrated circuits, someanalysts were taken aback by the lack ofknowledge of how those postage stampsized ICs can fail. The major conclusion isthat these two new standards represent afresh opportunity for reliability practitio-ners, worldwide.

Industrial Systems ReliabilityIn the industrial field, as a result of glob-

alization and deregulation, companies havefaced strong competitions, contributorHiroshi Yajima reports. The problem ofhow to manage an entire plant system reli-ably and efficiently in order to decrease thetotal cost of ownership has become moredaunting. Yajima identifies several ap-proaches to cope with this problem:

■ Establishing a telecommunicationline between the maintenance centerand the plant, and applying the follow-ing technologies for highly reliableoperation

1) Remote monitoring technology em-ploying defact open standard exchangeof monitoring and control data in use ofobject oriented software technology andintranet on the Web.2) Remote maintenance technology.3) Information sharing technology be-tween operator in main control roomand engineer and manager in work of-fice or business office that enable en-gineers in remote office access andcontrol instrumentation system.4) On-site information collection sys-tem that accurately gathers on-site im-age and acoustic information of theplant on demand.

■ Expanding remaining life of equipmentand control system in plant, by introduc-ing precautionary measures and diagno-sis methods that integrate the operationhistory data used to monitor trends ofprocess parameters, and assessing theremaining life of equipment and controlsystems with high reliability. Achievingthese technologies involves storing ofoperation data, also, information integra-tion systems of heterogeneous data basesthat consist of a variety of data sourcessuch as electric device database, docu-ment database, plant operation databaseand failure/accident database.In these systems, simple model predic-

tion control systems and operation supportsystems with a knowledge sharing functionfor abnormal state have been employed tocope with failures at start up and shut downor at frequent changes of products at plant,Yajima reports. Attention to reliability in Ja-pan has been focused on risk managementinstead of conventional prevention methodof plant accidents. This is partially becauseconfidence for preventive technology hasbeen lost at recent big accidents and partiallybecause the demand for higher reliabilityhas been quite strong in Japan. So, compa-nieshavebeen forced toprepare foravarietyof accidents and troubles. On the other hand,many technologies have been developed inuse of operation data and trouble historydata. More stock and utilization of these dataand organization management method forplant accidents should be studied.

IEEE Reliability PublicationsThe IEEE Reliability Society spon-

sors several publications in the reliabil-


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ity and related disciplines, including

the IEEE Transactions of Reliability,

IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor

Manufacturing, and the refereed pro-

ceedings from the Annual Reliability

and Maintainability Symposium and

the Annual Reliability Physics Sympo-

sium. These publications are available

to members of the Society as part of

their membership dues. Members of the

society are also entitled to discounted

registration fee for participation in

these reliability symposia.

Dr. Way Kuo, IEEE Fellow and Edi-tor of the IEEE Transactions on Reliabil-ity (IEEE-R) reports on many newchallenges that this journal is facing. Dr.Kuo suggests that although some reli-ability topics have arrived at a state ofmaturity, many new topics are nowemerging which will demand sophisti-cated future research. One thing is cer-tain: the ubiquitous presence ofhigh-tech industry means that reliabilityproblems will not only continue to existas usual but are likely to require evenmore complex solutions.

The first issue of the journal appearedin 1950, and its frequency of publicationis presently 4 issues per year. Statistics onthe volume of subscribers etc. are asshown in table 1.

Papers for IEEE-R have been sought that

address problems/solutions on reliability

and maintainability (R&M) design, statisti-

cal inference, software R&M, hardware

R&M, human reliability, and R&M perfor-

mance measures in the life-cycle products or

processes. Although theoretical papers are

welcome, application papers have been

strongly encouraged. The journal publishes

papers in the following areas and formats:

1. Reliability-and-maintainability(R&M) aspects of, and solutions for,emerging technologies.

2. R&M techniques for engineering andproduct-design applications to emerg-ing technologies

3. Proposed agenda for the future ofR&M research.

4. Critical evaluations of current R&Mresearch and development, includingrecommendations for changing theemphases in the field.

5. Reports on current R&M research re-sults.

6. Unique R&M case studies.

7. Perspectives on R&M studies that onebelieves should be aired.

8. Papers on new developments and find-ings in areas of interest to the Society.

9. Tutorial articles, correspondence,opinion items, literature review, andother practical papers.Occasionally, special issues/sections

are devoted to a single topic of timely in-terest. Dr. Kuo also reports that, in thepast three years, the contributing authorshave come from a large number of coun-tries as depicted in the chart below (con-tributed by Dennis Hoffman). In recentissues, fewer papers were published ontopics of data analysis and more empha-sis were placed on topics related to soft-ware and networks.

The journal is anxiously and continu-ally looking for papers on real case stud-ies of modern subjects.

List of ContributorsRichard L. Doyle, Senior Past President,

IEEE-RS and Chair, Mechanical Reli-ability Committee.

Dr. Wayne F. Ellis, IBM Microelectron-ics, Essex Junction, VT.

Dr. Christian K. Hansen (Ed.), Chair,IEEE-RS Reliability MethodologyCommittee.


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Year 1998 1997 1996

Member subscribers 2,592 2,620 2,657Student subscribers 138 117 120Non-member subscribers 619 652 689Pages printed/budgeted 480 536 692Average pages/issue 120 134 172Issues per year 4 4 4Papers submitted 201 195 189Accept/Reject ratio 35% / 65% 41% / 59% 47% / 53%No. of disputed papers 4 3 4Time to publication (months) 22 20 20Paper backlog (issues) 0 ½ 1

Table 1.

Dennis Hoffman, Chair, IEEE-RSCAD/CAE Committtee.

Yi Hong, IEEE-RS Human InterfaceTechnology Committee.

Dr. Koichi Inoue, Vice President, Tech-nical Operations, IEEE-RS.

Dr. Samuel J. Keene, Past President ofIEEE-RS and Chair, IEEE-RS Reli-ability Prediction Committee.

Takehesa Kohda, IEEE-RS Human In-terface Technology Committee.

Dr. Way Kuo, Editor,IEEE Transactions on Reliability.

Dr. Kenneth P. LaSala, President,IEEE-RS and Chair, Human InterfaceTechnology Committee.

Yoshinobu Sato, Chair, IEEE-RS SystemSafety Committee.

Dr. William R. Tonti, IBM Micro-electronics, Essex Junction, VT.

John P. Rooney, Chair, IEEE-RS In-ternational Reliability Committee.

Hiroshi Yajima, Hitachi Ltd, Kawasaki,Japan.Views expressed are those of the ed-

itor and contributors, and do not neces-sarily reflect official views of theaffiliated organizations or the IEEEReliability Society. E-mail and postalmailing addresses for most of theabove listed contributors are availablefrom the IEEE-RS Techops webpageh t t p : / / w w w . e w h . i e e e . o r g /soc/rs/CCO/techopschair.htm. Forthose not listed there, please contactC h r i s t i a n K . H a n s e n a [email protected]

ReferencesRamstad, Evan (AP), “Online expecta-

tions greater than delivery”, OrangeCounty Registrar, August 9, 1996,Business section.

Edwards, William, “Lessons Learned from 2Years Inspection Data”, Crosstalk Maga-

zine, No. 39, Dec 1992, cite: Weinberg.G., “Kill That Code!”, IEEE Tutorial onSoftware Restructuring, 1986, p. 131.

Oberg, James, “Why the Mars Probe Wentoff course”, IEEE Spectrum, Decem-ber 1999, pp. 34-39.

“DSC Says Software Change Led toPhone Outages”, Wall Street Journal,April 1994

April 25, 1994 issue of Forbes Magazine

Mays, R., Jones, C., Holloway, G., andStudinski, D., “Experiences with De-fect Prevention,” IBM Systems Jour-nal, Vol. 29, no. 1, 1990.

Tonti, W.R. and Ellis, W.F., “Device andProduct Design: Methodology andReliability Strategy for Deep Sub-Mi-cron Technology,” Tutorial presentedat BTV Seminar.


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Editor’s NotePlease Participate, I have received

only one response to date.I would appreciate your opinions on

two questions.1. Should reliability engineers be certi-

fied?2. Should companies certify their reliabil-

ity engineering processes to maturitylevels as is done with software?

Please email your opinions to me [email protected]. Regular mail isalso acceptable, address below.

ThanksDave Franklin

Millennium MedalHistory

� Not since the 1984 IEEE Centen-nial Medal has the IEEE given an

Institute-wide award to honorsuch a select and special group ofmembers.

� The Third Millennium Medals willhonor 3,000 outstanding members

� World-renown sculptor GladysGunzer created the Millennium med-als. Her work includes the 1984IEEE Centennial Medal and the 1980Winter Olympics Medallions.

� The design includes a world mapsymbolizing the global nature of theIEEE and the words “In celebrationof the Third Millennium”.

Congratulations to all award andmedal winners of 2000.

Loretta ArellanoAwards Chair, 2000

Dear Dr. Ken LaSala andall AdCom:

Thank you very much for dispatch-ing Dr. Sam Keene to Tokyo Chapteras an IEEE Reliability Society Distin-guished Lecturer. During his stay in Ja-pan from Nov. 20 to Nov. 26, Dr.

Keene kindly gave us two SpecialTalks, the one in Tokyo and the other inKyoto. Both Special Talks weregreatly successful.

On Nov. 22, Dr. Keene gave us inTokyo the first Special Talk on “SixSigma and Quality Development”,which a t t rac ted 107 at tendants ,mostly from industries. On Nov. 24,he gave us in Kyoto University thesecond Special Talk on “Software Re-liability”, which attracted 20 atten-dants, mostly from the University andsome from industries. Details will bereported in the Newletter by the To-kyo Chapter Chair soon.

We would like to express ourheartiest thanks to Dr. Sam Keene,Dr. Ken LaSala and all AdCom, whomade it possible and also made itgreat success.

Best regards,Dr. Koichi Inoue

VP TechOpsJunior Past Chair,

Tokyo Chapter

Editor's Messagecontinued from page 2


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