IEEE

Vol. 48, No. 2, April 2002 (ISSN 1059-8642)

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

President’s Message

In mid February, I attended the Organizational Units Series of meet-ings covering all of the Units that are involved in the management ofthe IEEE. As your Society President, I am a voting member of theTechnical Activities Board (TAB), as are all Societyand Council Presidents and the Division Directors.Motions come out of various standing committees orfrom the TAB itself, are discussed, and are voted upon.Those motions that are approved for recommendationare passed to the IEEE Board of Directors for final ap-proval. The motions can include policy changes, task-ing of Headquarters, tasking of Societies andCouncils, establishment of a new incentive or productwith resources funded, etc. Your Reliability Society isfortunate this year as we have two former ReliabilitySociety Presidents attending TAB with me. LorettaArellano is our Division VI Director and Dick Doyle is the RegionalActivities Board (RAB) to TAB Representative.

If you haven’t taken the time to look into the IEEE and its organiza-tion, I encourage you to review and understand how the various organi-zational pieces fit together. The IEEE is a complex internationalnon-profit organization that operates on a global basis. The IEEE is theworld’s largest technical professional society and is devoted to advanc-ing the theory and practice of electrical and electronics engineering andcomputer science. The IEEE serves engineers, scientists, and other pro-fessionals in approximately 150 countries. IEEE as an international pro-fessional organization is made up of approximately 400,000 members,spread across 10 geographic regions, organized in 298 sections, support-ing 1156 Student Branches, almost 1300 Chapters, 37 Technical Soci-eties, and 4 Technical Councils involving 31 Societies in at least 1Council. The IEEE is a well-recognized and respected organization.

The Societies are the revenue engines for IEEE and represent about65 percent of IEEE income. The Societies publish 105 of the IEEE’s115 different publications. Society members make up 75 percent of thesubscribers, which translates to 822,800 subscribers. Societies alsosponsor 90 percent of the IEEE conferences. As you can see, Societiesare major participants in the IEEE, including your Society.

In January on the Saturday before RAMS (the annual internationalReliability and Maintainability Symposium), the first AdCom meeting

C O N T E N T SPresident’s Message

1

Editor’s Column3

Chapter News3

AdCom Meeting Minutes6

TechOps Status Report8

Standards News13

Educational Activities Update24

Meeting Notices17

Technical Magazine Section:

22

Editor:Dave Franklin

Associate Editor:John Healy

Business Manager:Bob Gauger

Reliability Society

continued on page 5

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IEEE RELIABILITY SOCIETY OFFICERSPresidentDennis Hoffman (d.hoffman@ieee.org)Vice President - MembershipA. N. Campbell (ancampbe@sandia.gov)Vice President - PublicationsDr. Robert J. Loomis, Jr(r.j.loomis@ieee.org)Vice President - MeetingsJohn Healy (healyj@cs.com)Vice President - Technical OperationsWilliam R. Tonti wtonti@ieee.orgSecretaryJeff Voas (jvoas@cigital.com)TreasurerR. A. Kowalski (dkowalsk@arinc.com)

STANDING COMMITTEESStandards and DefinitionsT. Brogan(Thomas_L_Brogan@res.raytheon.com)Y. Lord(Yvonne_Lord@mail.northgrum.com)Meetings OrganizationJohn Healy (healyj@cs.com)General MembershipA. N. Campbell (ancampbe@sandia.gov)ChaptersL. Arellano (l.arellano@ieee.org)Academic Education CommitteeM. Abramo (m.t.abramo@ieee.org)Professional DevelopmentM. Abramo (m.t.abramo@ieee.org)Constitution and BylawsK. P. LaSala (k.lasala@ieee.org)

Nominations and AwardsK. P. LaSala (k.lasala@ieee.org)FellowsT. L. Regulinski (regulinski@ece.arizona.edu)FinanceR. A. Kowalski (dkowalsk@arinc.com)HistorianA. Plait (aplait@ieee.org)Academic EducationDr. Robert J. Loomis, Jr(r.j.loomis@ieee.org)

TECHNICAL OPERATIONSVice PresidentWilliam R. Tonti wtonti@ieee.orgTechnology Committees(12 committees)CAD/CAEJanasak (kjanasak@raytheon.com)Human Interface TechnologyK. P. La Sala (k.lasala@ieee.org)International ReliabilityJoseph R Fragola (fragola@prodigy.net)Mechanical ReliabilityR. L. Doyle (r.doyle@ieee.org)Microelectronic TechnologiesAlan Street (alan@iris.com)T. A. Rost (t-rost@ti.com)Reliability DesignM. Roush (roush@eng.umd.edu)Reliability MethodologyC. K. Hansen (c.k.hansen@ieee.org)System SafetyTakehisa Kohda (kohda@kuaero.kyoto~u.ac.jp)

Software ReliabilityS. J. Keene (s.keene@ieee.org)Ann Miller (millera@ece.umr..eduStandards & DefinitionsY. Lord(Yvonne_Lord@mail.northgrum.comT. L. Brogan(Thomas_L_Brogan@res.raytheon.comTesting & ScreeningH. A. Chan (h.a.chan@ieee.org)WarrantyVacant

Systems Committees(8 committees)Aerospace & Defense SystemsD. L. Franklin (d.l.franklin@ieee.org)Automotive SystemsC. Aladekugbe(Clement.Aladekugbe@carrier.utc.com)B. Dodson (bdodson@visteon.com)Consumer ElectronicsF. Shenkelberg (fms@hp.com)Energy SystemsM. Lively (MbeLively@aol.com)Industrial SystemsH. Yajima (yajima@sdl.hitachi.co.jp)Information Technology &CommunicationsJ. Healy (healyj@cs.com)Medical SystemsVacantSensor SystemsK. P. La Sala (k.lasala@ieee.org)

All RS newsletter inputs should be sent to:

Editor: Dave Franklin23309 Park Colombo, Calabasas, CA 91302Tel: +1 818 586 9683E-mail: d.l.franklin@ieee.org

Associate Editor: John Healyhealyj@cs.com

Business Manager: R. Gaugerr.gauger@ieee.org

The schedule for submittals is:Newsletter Articles Due Ads Due

January November 8 December 8April February 8 March 8July May 8 June 8October August 8 September 8

IEEE Reliability Society Newsletter (ISSN 1059-8642) is pub-lished four times a year in January, April, July and October bythe Reliability Society of the Institute of Electrical and Elec-tronic Engineers, Inc. Headquarters: 3 Park Avenue, 17th Floor,New York, NY 10016-5997. Sent at a cost of $1.00 per year toeach member of the Reliability Society. Printed in U.S.A. Peri-odicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailingoffices. Postmaster: Send changes to Reliability Society News-letter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway NJ 08854.

©2002 IEEE. Permission to copy without fee all or part of anymaterial without a copyright notice is granted provided that thecopies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advan-tage, and the title of the publication and its date appear on eachcopy. To copy material with a copyright notice requires specificpermission. Please direct all inquiries or requests to IEEE Copy-rights and Permissions Office.

ADVERTISING RATESAll copy that contains graphics or special fonts must be cam-

era-ready or delivered on computer disk and be received by thedue 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 thanone issue.

Chapters News

Walter E Willing

Jefferson D Bronfeld

The Boston Chapter opened the NewYear in January with a monthly meetingon the “SHARPE Graphical User Inter-face (GUI).” SHARPE, the Symbolic Hi-erarchical Automated Reliability andPerformance Evaluator, is a popular soft-ware tool for solving complex reliabilityand availability models. It was developedby Professor Kishor Trivedi at Duke Uni-versity. Chapter AdCom member JoeDzekevich of Raytheon demonstrated thenew GUI, which simplifies constructionof the models solved by SHARPE.

In February, we held a relatedmonthly meeting on “Applied SystemReliability Modeling.” Over the past fewyears, the Boston Chapter covered vari-ous reliability analysis tools and tech-niques in its meetings. The focus of thismeeting was how to apply those toolsand techniques to real-world problems.Chapter member Dr. Michael Elbert ofCompaq Computer Corporation sharedhis experience and expertise on how toapproach, select methods and metrics

for, analyze, and interpret the results ofreliability modeling problems.

Our March monthly meeting was heldat the Waters Corporation in Milford,Massachusetts. Waters is the world’sleading supplier of high performance liq-uid chromatography instrumentation andconsumables, as well as thermal analysisand mass spectrometry products. Reli-ability Engineering Manager RichardCass gave a presentation on “Waters Ap-proach to Mechanical ReliabilityTesting,” which included a guided tour oftheir reliability lab, machine shop, andassembly area.

We will close our 2001-02 activityyear in May with a Spring Lecture Serieson “Analyzing Statistical Data.” JoeDzekevich put together this three-eve-ning course based on the book Basic Sta-t is t ics , Tools for ContinuousImprovement by Kiemele, Schmidt, andBerdine. Topics to be covered include:data plots; organizing data for statisticalprograms; descriptive statistics; “P”, the“voice of the data”; T, paired, grouped,and non-parametric tests; two-way crosstabulation; linear regression and ANOVAfor DOE; and residual analysis.

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

Jeff ClarkChair, Boston Chapter

jaclark@ieee.org

See Boston Chapter activities.Jeffery A Clark

Frank D Straka

Regards,Vincent Lalli, Chair

Vincent.R.Lalli@lerc.nasa.gov

Donald ButlerIEEE Dallas Section Chair

dpb@engr.smu.edu

Samuel J Keene

Shuichi Fukuda, ChairChair, Japan Chapter

fukuda@tmit.ac.jp

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Editor’s ColumnWe want to hear from you, please sub-

mit your articles, comments or questionby email if possible.

Thanks,

Dave FranklinEditor

Dear member society Presidentsof IEEE Nanotechnology Council:

As you may know, the second IEEEconference on nanotechnology,IEEE-NANO’2002, will be held inWashington DC on August 26-28, with a

day of tutorials on August 25. To find outmore about the conference, please logonto http://ewh.ieee.org/tc/nanotech/nano2002/. Deadline for paper abstractsubmission is due by March 31. Regis-tration information will be put on theweb soon.

As a member sponsoring society ofthe Nanotechnology Council, your mem-bers would be interested in participatingin nanotechnology activities. I wouldvery much appreciate it if you can publi-cize this conference to your members, for

example by putting a link to the confer-ence in your society conference activitiespage. I would especially appreciate it ifyou can place the conference announce-ment in your societies newsletter, maga-zine, or transactions. The Call for Papersis in the website.

I look forward to seeing you at theconference.

Cliff LauIEEE-NANO’2002 General Chair

Nanotechnology CouncilPresident-elect

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In February we heard “InformationArchitecture on the Wild, Wild Web: Im-proving the Structure, Presentation, Ac-cessibility, and Semantics of OurElectronic Content” given by WayneSmith, Director, Office of InformationTechnology, College of Business andEconomics, California State University,Northridge, wayne.smith@csun.edu

Deciphering the W3C alphabet soup(XML, CSS, SVG, DOM, SOAP, RDF,WAI, P3P, etc.) for publishing stan-dards-based documents on the WorldWide Web is rapidly becoming a full timejob. Moreover, each of the “document”standards has subtle technological, archi-tectural, design, and organizationaltouchpoints. Understanding the genesis,direction, and status of each of the W3Cstandards is increasingly critical in ahighly interconnected world.

Probably the most ambitious initiativeyet is the one to build the “SemanticWeb”— that is, to embedded clarity, con-sistency, and mutually reinforced seman-t ic meaning on the Web. Thispresentation will summarize these activi-ties and discuss what future “informationarchitectures” IT professionals will bebuilding for their organizations.

Mr. Smith has been involved with com-puters since 1975. He graduated with aBachelor’s of Science degree in Manage-ment Information Systems from Califor-nia State University, Northridge (CSUN)in 1984, and is currently a doctoral studentin the School of Information Science atClaremont Graduate University. He hasheld various positions at CSUN includingfull-time lecturer in the Department of Ac-counting and MIS. Mr. Smith co-foundedand taught in the desktop technology pro-gram of the CSUN Continuing Educationprogram in 1986. He has been a networkmanager at a large UC campus and hasalso taught Financial and Managerial Ac-counting at a local community college.From 1991 to 1994, Mr. Smith superviseda team of programmers who designed anddeveloped a major magazine impositiondatabase and layout computer applicationfor a Fortune 125 printing firm.

Mr. Smith is currently the Director ofTechnology in the College of BusinessAdministration and Economics at CSUN

where he helps manage the technologyneeds for 5,000 students, 150 faculty, and35 staff. Mr. Smith has daily contact withstudents, most notably as the faculty ad-visor to the Management InformationSystems Association student organiza-tion and as a frequent guest lecturer in theCollege. He has some enterprise-wide in-volvement as well, including networkand server management, implementationof ERP (Peoplesoft) systems, developingcustom DSS/OLAP solutions, classroommultimedia design, strategic planningand change management, and IT profes-sional development.

In the past two years, Mr. Smith hasbeen involved in doing pro bono work forother government agencies, including theLos Angeles Police Department, the LosAngeles County Office of Education, andSanta Monica College, in the area of hir-ing and selecting quality IT professionalsand executives. Mr. Smith is a licensedamateur radio operator and is active inseveral religious and charitable organiza-tions in the San Fernando Valley.

March 6, 2002 Subject: Trends inInformation Security, Speaker:Roberta Gotfried, RaytheonCompany, Electronic Systems,rlgotfried@west.Raytheon.com

The field of computer security beganover 20 years ago in the form of a highlyformal discipline aimed at protectingconfidentiality of government classifiedinformation as the use of computers grew.Since that time, computer security hasevolved as an engineering disciplinethrough a series of incarnations, each oneaddressing a new set of objectives andnew sets of threats - all the time trying tokeep up with the rapidly changing worldof computing and information systems.Now, privacy and cyber terrorism havetaken a pre-eminent place in the field,with much wider public awareness.

This talk will review the evolution ofthe field of information security, look atrecent trends in information security andlook at what might lie ahead.

Ms. Roberta Gotfried is currently Direc-tor of Information Assurance Programs forRaytheon Electronic Systems and Chair ofthe Raytheon-wide Information Securityand Information Management TIG. Shehas over 20 years of experience leading re-

search and development of technology pro-grams in software systems. She has lead re-search and development activities ininformation security for real-time systemsfor the last 10 years. She was a Principal In-vestigator and the lead system security en-gineer for numerous technology programs,including the DARPA-funded PROSE de-velopment for high performance comput-ers and the Information AssuranceReliability Model program and is ProgramManager for several research programs inembedded systems information technol-ogy. She was also Principal Investigator onthe Secure Avionics Architecture ConceptDevelopment Program, to define the sys-tem security requirements for the JointStrike Fighter Weapon System.

David L Franklind.l.franklin@ieee.org

In 2002 the Twin Cities chapter hadheld meetings in January, February andMarch. The January 15 th. meeting wason the topic of “Accelerated Life Testing”by James McLinn, Reliability Consultantand hosted by StorageTek. Thirty-Fourpeople attended. The February 19 meet-ing was at Unysis with Gerald Pattison ofPhysical Electronics speaking upon“Product Development and Reliability”with 29 people attending. Steve Theissenof mentor spoke in March on the topic of“ESD and Reliability” before a crowd of20 at StorageTek. Meetings are plannedfor April and May.

James McLinnChapter Chair

JMReL2@Aol.com

Vacant

Fausto Fantini

Dear Dr. Almuhtadi and Mr.Abdullah:

On behalf of the IEEE Executive Di-rector, Dan Senese, it is a pleasure to in-

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form you that the requirements of theIEEE Bylaws have been met, and thechange in status of the Reliability/PowerEngineering Society joint Chapter of theOttawa Section has been approved. TheChapters will now be the Reliability So-ciety Chapter and the Power EngineeringSociety Chapter of the Ottawa Section.The effective date of this Chapter changeis 16 January, 2002.

At this time we are recording Dr.Almuhtadi as the Chair of the Power En-gineering Society Chapter, and Mr.Abdullah as the Reliability Society Chap-ter Chair. When an election has beenheld, please use the enclosed OfficerConfirmation form to report the officersto IEEE. If we can assist you in any wayin the planning of the Chapter activitiesplease let us know.

We extend our best wishes for the suc-cessful operation of this Chapter.Sincerely,Cecelia JankowskiManaging DirectorRegional Activities

Wahab Almuhtadi

Fulvio E. Oliveto, ChairpersonPhiladelphia Section

(856) 914-7298

Chapter Chairman:Michael V. Frank

sfainc@Pacbell.NetR.L. Doyle, Secretary

IN REPLY(858) 459-6504

REFER TO RLD:00801r.doyle@ieee.org

Vacant

(ED/Reliability/CPMT Joint Chap-ter)

Please note that, M.K. Radhakrishnanis the Chapter Chair from 2001 onwards.

Dr. Ong was the Chapter chair in 1999and 2000.

Dr. M.K. RadhakrishnanChapter Chair, IEEE Rel/CPMT/ED

Chapter, Singaporee-mail : radhakrishnan@ieee.org

Michael E Parten

Mauro CiappaSwitzerland Chapter Chair

email:

Walter W Zessner

Kenneth P La Sala

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of 2002 was held in Seattle. The newlyelected AdCom members and Society Of-ficers were introduced and became, withthe other AdCom members, the adminis-trative function to guide and manage yourSociety. There are 18 elected AdCommembers with six members elected eachyear. This approach allows your Society tohave an influx of new members each yearwhile allowing a smooth transition. Soci-ety Officers are elected from the AdComand serve one-year terms.

Your AdCom addressed Society fi-nances at the second AdCom meeting heldin April on the Saturday before the IRPS(International Reliability Physics Sympo-

sium) in Dallas. Society dues, publicationpage counts, and non-member publicationfees were discussed and established for2003, as this information must be suppliedto IEEE by June 2002. Additional revenuesources were discussed, as were educa-tional products. The AdCom continues tofocus on ways of providing benefit to itsmembers as well as ways of being a careerbenefit to you.

Society ParticipationAs a continuing ending message, the

Reliability Society is your Society. YourSociety depends on volunteer services, soit can continue to function. Your Societyis very fortunate that volunteers do con-tinue to come forward, get involved, andcontribute. But there is much that isn’tgetting done, especially in our TechnicalOperation committees, and these com-

mittee outputs are of direct benefit to ourmembers — that is you and I.

Get involved. Participate.

There are plenty of ways and areas tomatch your interests. You can become in-volved in your local chapter, establish achapter in your area, get involved in oneof the Technical Operations committees,help develop IEEE reliability standardsand best practices, or run for election asan AdCom member. Get involved and ex-ercise your technical and / or administra-tive skills. If you are not sure how to getinvolved, contact your local chapter offi-cers or your national officers. They willbe more than happy to answer your ques-tions and to guide you.

Have a great year,

Dennis Hoffman

dennis.r.hoffman@lmco.com

President’sMessagecontinued from page 1

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AdCom Meeting

Seattle, WashingtonJanuary 26, 2002

In attendance:Norm Schneidewind, Martin Shooman,

John Healy, Scott Abrams, DennisHoffman, Tom Brogan, Loretta Arellano,Christain Hansen, Ann Campbell, TedFreeman, David Franklin, Bob Loomis,Tom Fagan, Ann Miller, Joseph Fragola,Alan Street, Koichi Inoue, Bill Tonti, BobGauger, Dick Doyle, Ken LaSala, DickKowalski, Yvonne Lord, Jeffrey Voas

8:00Call to OrderD. Hoffman

Agree to Agenda - D. HoffmanIntroduced new AdCom class mem-

bers, approve President appointments,and introduce officers - D. Hoffman. Thegroup introduced themselves for all newand current members.

In the anticipation that RS will rewritethe Bylaws, Ken recommends that the 2most recent full term past presidents willbe made ex-officio with voting rights asof the date 1/01/02. AdCom approved therecommendation for the draft Bylaws.

Dennis Hoffman brought to the floorthe appointed positions. For 2002 Dennisrecommended: Secretary Dr. Jeff Voas,Treasurer Dr. Dick Kowalski, Trans Edi-tor Dr. Way Kuo, Newsletter Editor Da-vid Franklin. The appointments wereapproved unanimously by ADCOM.

8:40-9:10Minutes ApprovalJ. Voas / B. Tonti

Bill Reviewed the Action items. Themotion was then made to accept the Julyand October minutes. The minutes wereunanimously approved.

ACTION ITEM SUMMARYMembershipAnn Campbell

1) VP Membership to develop a suit-able membership form for the Transac-tions and the Newsletter.

2) Send the Reliability Society Surveyto our membership no later than 2/2002,

7/21/01 Status: Contract signed. Surveycompleted, but has not been approved byADCOM for sending to RS members. ½status: Working Final draft in process.

3) Membership to review IES mem-bership program, Millennium for Suc-cess , mater ia l to see what thatorganization is doing to retain and cap-ture members and possibly develop someideals for RS. (Institute of EnvironmentalSciences) 01/02/02 Status: Carried toAnn Campbell, to be reconstituted.

TechOpsKoichi Inoue

4) Ops Manual needs to be reviewedby old and new Tech Ops VPs to assurejob descriptions are covered and are ade-quate. 01/01/02 TBD for next ADCOM.

5) Review and make a recommenda-tion at the Jan 2001 AdCom meeting onCouncil sponsorship. Basically, are wegetting our money’s worth? ReviewCouncil involvement, along with traveland other liabilities, and make pro / conrecommendation. 7/21/2001 Status: InProcess, conclusions to be presented atOctober ADCOM.

ref: IEEE sponsors councils. IEEE pro-vides seed money, they operate financiallyindependent therein. We have 4 councilsNano-Technology, Sensors Council,(at adevice type level) Intelligent Transporta-tion Systems council, SuperConductivitycouncil (Not supported by RS ). All otherthe other 3 are supported. Recommenda-tion: Continue on present track.

PublicationsBob Loomis

6) Overview papers (2-3 pages inlength) in the Newsletter and to build abacklog. Put call for such papers inNewsletter. 01/01/02 status: Closed.

7) Work with RAMS in providing aCD-ROM for 2002, and eliminating thehard-copy RS mailing. 01/01/02 Status:New RAMS Proceedings Editor madeusing a CD-ROM to risky for the 2002RAMS. However, the 2003 RAMS GChas been informed that the RS will be pur-chasing CDs instead of Hardcopy. StatusClosed

Special AssignmentJohn Healy

8) Continue working on Article for theIEEE institute. Status as of 01/01/02. Notcompleted

President’s ReportD. Hoffman

Dennis reviewed the history of the RS,its down and up swings. Dennis reviewedthe target goal of how to make Societymembership more valuable to its mem-bers. This is one of the main themes in theEXCOM report described below.

Nov TAB Meeting ReportL. Arellano / D. Doyle

Comments: TAB: Technical ActivitiesBoard is a meeting of all Society presidents.Dick Doyle represented RS. IEEE lost$22M in operating expenses in 2001. Theaction activities were: Presidents agreed todrop the TAB/RAB (regional activitiesboard) reorganization for 1 year. A budgetshowinga$3Mloss for2002wasapproved.

� Reliability Marketing Action Plan -A. Street

� Alan’s Theme: Who are we trying toreach?

� Joint chapters do very well. e.g. Sin-gapore is a joint RS/EDS chapter.

� Individual tech disciplines are besthandled by tech ops.

� Mechanics of Publicity: www sites,e-mail lists, conferences, trade pressarticles, chapter presentations.

� Survey is a starting point; Action itemto all: send random thoughts to Alan

Next, discussion by Ken/Marty on howto infuse this in college curricula. Martyindicates that this can be integrated in alecture. David commented on quality vs.reliability. We allowed ASQ to certify reli-ability engineers and eat our lunch. AnnM. discussed the software video. Result ofdiscussion: We will wait for the survey re-sults and then take further action

Treasurers Report

R. KowalskiFY01 Results & FY02 Budget

Three separate budgets are in process,past, current, and future years. Income

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sources emanate from membership fees,APP (All Periodical package), andnon-member transaction fees (e.g. a li-brary), meetings and symposiums.

Meetings

J. Healy / J. VoasSponsored Conferences Report, New

Sponsorships, and Meeting location plan-ning. Joe will send out meeting requestproposal. Dick Doyle presented NanoTechnology conference status. DickDoyle will write a review for the RS news-letter. A motion unanimously passed tosend Bill to ASEE conference for ABETtraining in June for ABET, not to exceed$1200.00. Sam presented ISSRE postmortem. 130 people attended. Keynotewas Motorola Global Services exec.

Fevzi Belli presented a discussion onPaterborn Germany AdCom meeting.Main airport is in Hanover. IEEE is not veryactive at the University, but IEEE Germanyis active. Of the 18K students, about 9Kstudents are engineering students. Thejournal equivalent to IEEE is “VED”. 1Kstudents are EE, 2K students are CS.

Joe discussed the chapter in Milan It-aly, and it is coming together. (EnricoZio). Not the best tourist place, but greatrestaurants, close to the Ferrari plant,transportation friendly. The polytechnicUniversity is good, population approx.12K. Reliability department is strong.Tutorials would be well received.Weather is not good in the fall. 2 airportsare nearby. Bus and possibly train serviceis available. It is the industrial center of It-aly. A straw man vote chose Italy as thefirst choice.

PublicationsR. Loomis

Overview & Web site update - R.Loomis, T-Rel Performance in 2001,Plans for 2002 - W. Kuo, Database Pro-ject Status - W. Kuo. Bob indicates theproject is complete. This will be demon-strated tomorrow (1/27/02) at the associ-ate editors meeting. Joe Fragola indicatesthat the most useful transactions werethose that are special issues. Marty dis-cussed the non-practical transactions is-sues, and perhaps a special issue wouldsolve this problem. Bob will remain a fo-cal point for special issue inclusions. Ac-tion Item: ADCOM to send Bob new

ideas for next ADCOM meeting. Bobmentioned that we also do special sec-tions in a standard issue of the transac-tions.

Newsletter Status - D. Franklin, Thereis a magazine section of the newsletter.John Healy will take this over when itgrows large enough. Ann requested thatDave e-mail a reminder when the mate-rial for the newsletter is due. Dave men-tioned, “just send it”. Loretta suggestedthat we keep a deadline in order to obtainchapter reports / schedules on a timelybasis. Dave will work on this! He men-tioned that the Chapters themselves donot report on a schedule.

Advertising Status for T-Rel & News-letter - B. Gauger. Transactions providesapprox $4K/yr. Newsletter has about$6.5K/yr. Bob mentioned a bartered ad-vertisement with DTIC. Bob stated thatthis is a good win-win system.

T-SM Status - M. Abramo. Marsha re-mains as the T-SM representative. Sheconducted a first meeting in the manage-ment of T-SM. It is the number one citedjournal in manufacturing type compa-nies. Possibly a telecom will take placethis summer. They are discussing a semi-conductor society forming.

Video Tutorial Status - S. Keene.There was a taping in December. IEEE isnot encouraging the production of anyvideos. They would like to provide infor-mation that is attractive to universities.i.e. On-Line resources.

T-DMR Status - A. Campbell / B.Tonti. 3rd edition was just published. 4thedition will be out in March. The totalnumber of paper submitted 2001: 32,Number accepted 2001: 21, Number re-jected 2001: 2, In revision: 9, Invited: 7,Contributed 23, Average 7 papers / issuefor 2001, Submission to first decision:average of 57 days (publish at first deci-sion)

MembershipAnn Campbell

Membership Report / Brochure / Ac-tion Plan - Ann Campbell, MembershipDevelopment Retreat (March 8-10, 2002)Coverage Plan, Chapters Report / ActionPlan - L. Arellano. Loretta recommendedthat Ann attend Sections Congress ‘02 inWashington D.C. Dave volunteered to

maintain the r07 e-mail for our 3K mem-bers.

PACE Report - B. Gauger for M.Abramo. Loretta described Bob’s in-volvement for the PACE annual reward tobe delivered to Bob in May for his 10years of involvement. A motion carriedunanimously that Bob has a budget not toexceed $2000.00 at the award PACE con-ference to make up any delta betweenPACE and out of pocket expenses.

Logo Development Status - C.Hansen, Net: Go to Christian with yourvote or additional idea.

Technical OperationsB. Tonti / K. Inoue

Technical Operations Report, A mo-tion unanimously carried to allow ATR tobe reprinted by RAC and Japan’s Unionof Scientists and Engineers. StandardsStatus - Y. Lord, T. Brogan, Council Re-ports: Sensors (LaSala), ITS (Kaufman),Nanotechnology, (Campbell), IEEEVoting Machine Standard Team Status -J. Healy

Bill Made the motion to add 3 commit-tees, Eric Snyder of Sandia Technologiesfor committee on WLR, Danielle Tannerof Sandia Nat. Labs for MEM’s technolo-gies, Eric Vogel and J. Seuhle of NIST fordielectrics, and Jody Van Horn of IBMfor product burn-in. Motion is tabled, Billto come back in April with interest andproposed activity.

Bill discussed the initiatives for TechOps:

� Education for members / potentialmembers: By seminars, both paidand free e.g. TPC comm. chairs toplace “public” knowledge on RSweb site to be used by all in outsidelectures. Lectures at high schools,colleges, chapters, companies.

� Publish chapter reports e.g. inT-DMR, The institute.

� Encourage actual publications in out-side journals. e.g. RAMS to T-DMR.

A motion carried to create a new com-mittee on six sigma, acting chair is SamKeene. Bill asked for a new editor of theATR and Thanked Christian Hansen forhis superb job as editor, and expressed hisregret that Christian nolonger had thetime tto devote to the task. Scott Abramsagreed to take over the ATR editing.

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John Healy: new team, voting stan-dards. (Give it to Jeff). (Voting machinestandards group). If you want to be on theteam, contact John (see listing in front ofnewsletter).

Junior Past President’s ReportK. LaSala

Nominations Committee Report,Awards and Medals Report / AdHocCommittee. One note: Engineer of theyear is actual the annual award. By Laws& Constitution Change Status

Senior Past President’s ReportL. Arellano

Div VI Highlights

Old BusinessNone other than that covered in the re-

ports

New BusinessA motion to fund the graphics artist

$3K to work on a minimum of 3 logo de-signs passed. Christian Hansen will pro-ceed. Please e-mail Christian any ideasthat you have.

Course Sponsorship Proposal / Gen-eral Topic Discussion. Proposal for acourse on probabilistic risk assessmentwith RS sponsorship of a seminar to be la-

beled as an RS seminar / short course.The seminar is a 3 day venture. Joe andBill will work out a plan under tech ops.

Appointment Terms / General Discus-sion - J. Fragola

Working Item: Have Tom and Yvonnework with Norm. RS/CSEE/IEEE and ap-proach AIAA with the recommendation

5:00 Adjourn6:30 Banquet

TechOps Status Report

January 2002-April 2002William R. Tonti, VPTechOps

The TechOps Committee Meetingwas held on January 27, 2000 in Seattle,Washington preceding the annual RAMSconvention. Dr. Koichi Inoue former VPof Technical Operations introduced Dr.William Tonti as the incoming VP.

Attendees: Total 20, *Koichi Inoue,*John Healy, *Tom Brogan, *YvonneLord, *Christian Hansen, *Keith Janasak,Dennis Hoffman, *Ken Lasala, *NormSchneidewind, Dick Kowalski, *DaveFranklin, *Hiroshi Yajima, *Scott Abrams,*Dick Doyle, Bob Gauger, *TakehisaKohda, *Ann Campbell, *Alan Street, TedFreeman, *Sam Keene, Bill Tonti

* Technical Operations chair or com-mittee member

Meeting Agenda:1. Call to order by Koichi Inoue / Intro-

duction of Tech Ops chairs, and in-coming VP

2. TechOps year-end (2001) reportsVP TechOps report by Koichi Inoue3. New VP’s 2001 goals4. Tech Ops Chairs Summary Reports:

Meeting Minutes:1. TechOps Restructuring: Refer to at-

tached summary by Scott Abrams,who has accepted the Tech Ops edito-

rial position, formerly held byChristian Hansen.

2. New VP’s Principle of TechOps Man-agement:As incoming VP I would like to con-

tinue with the strategy of Dr. Inoue,whereby quarterly tech ops reports are usedto keep everyone abreast of current topics,and also used to help each chair organizetheir respective annual technology report.In addition, as Dr Inoue has previously putin place, these reports or lack therein are tobe used to sunset inactive committees.

Additionally as incoming VP I am re-questing each tech ops committee initiatea (or multiple) state of the art modularshort course that the Reliability Societythrough Technical Operations can use toeducate the engineering community atlarge, as well as universities, colleges andsecondary schools. These short courseswill be organized on the RS web site, witha suite of abstracts that may be viewed bythe public. The technical presentationswould be stored in a protected area, onlyviewable by the Technical Operationschairs and authors.3. The following is a brief summary of the

Technical Operations Chairs Reportspresented at the annual tech ops meet-ing, or sent via e-mail: (Note: This in-formation is taken from the writtenmaterial electronically sent to the VPtech ops, and the tech ops editor) i.e.:

4. VP Tech Ops: Bill Tonti

wtonti@us.ibm.comTech Ops editor: Scott Abramssabrams@omnicongroup.com

CAD / CAE: Keith Janasak,Chair:

The Reliability CAD/CAE Tech OpsCommittee’s objective is be a conduit ofinformation for today’s R&M CAE toolsand future emerging R&M CAE direc-tion. The committee plans to become vis-ible through the RAMs conference byoffering an R&M CAE Track . This willinclude papers, tool vendor exhibits, tooloverview presentations and demonstra-tions, and tutorials, pending participantfeedback.

Consumer Electronics: FredSchenkelberg, Chair:

The Consumer Electronics committeecontinues to grow, and is actively seekingadditional members. In 2002 this com-mittee plans to publish on “ What can bedone in the product development processto minimize the chance of a productcatching fire?”

Human Interface technologyCommittee: Dr. Kenneth P.LaSala, Chair:

The Human Interface TechnologyCommittee activities for 2001 consisted ofassembling the HIT Committee contribu-tion to the Reliability Society Annual Tech-

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nical Report, preliminary discussions oncommittee terms of reference, incrementaladditions to the Web page, review of plansfor a reliability conference in China and re-ferral of the subject to the Reliability Soci-ety AdCom, and introductory discussionsabout a human reliability standard. For2002 these activities shall be continued.

Industrial Systems Committee:Dr. Hiroshi Yajima, Chair:

For 2001, this committee was estab-lished, having the objectives:

� Survey of reliability technology atspecific plant industries and troubles.

� Survey of reliability issues in realplant failure.

� Start up survey of reliability issues inorganization and risk management.

� For 2002 the committee plans are:� Survey of reliability issues in orga-

nization and risk management.� Survey of reliability status and trend

at plant industry� Selectionofnewcommitteemembers.

Mechanical ReliabilityCommittee: Mr. Richard L. Doyle,Chair:

For 2001, the committee: preparedand gave a tutorial presentation to theSingapore Chapter. The presentation wason “Thermal Analysis of Integrated Cir-cuits and Small Systems”. In cooperationwith the Nanotechnologies Council, thecommittee chaired two sessions at the2001 Nanotechnologies Conference.

In 2002 the committee plans to publishan RS newsletter article, and to hold a mem-bership meeting to establish the strengthsand weaknesses of the committee, and de-velop plans to utilize the present strengths,and to improve on the weaknesses.

Reliability Committee and ATREditor: Christian Hansen, Chair:

For 2001, The Annual TechnologyReport (ATR) was completed and sub-mitted to Dave Franklin. Plans are to pub-lish IEEE-RS Newsletter, the RACJournal, and the Journal of the JapaneseUnion of Scientists and Engineers.

Software Relibility: Dr. SamuelKeene, Chair:

In 2001 the committee members par-ticipated significantly in the InternationalSoftware Reliability Engineering Sym-

posium held in Hong Kong Mladen Vouk,Jeffrey Voas, Ann Miller, Joanne BetchaDugan, and Sam Keene produced a fourthSoftware related video tutorial, “De-veloping Fault Tolerant Software”.For2002 Dr. Schneidewind proposed devel-oping a cooperative working relationshipon software standards with CS. Plans areto develop another tutorial on Softwareaspects of system security and risk miti-gation, and to complete the Software Re-liability Chapter for the McGraw Hill’sHandbook for Electrical Engineers”. Ad-ditionally the committee will investigatedeveloping greater initiatives in Softwareand System Risk Mitigation.

Standards & Definitions:Co-Chairs Yvonne Lord, TomBrogan:

The Standards & Definitions Commit-tee continued support of the SCC37 Reli-ability Prediction IEEE 1413.1 WorkingGroup during 2001. The WG held four(4) face-to-face meetings and nearly 20teleconferences. Currently the documentis in the pre-balloting stage and is beingworked with the IEEE editor to resolveformatting inconsistencies.

The 2002 Plans are continued supportand monitor the progress of the IEEESCC 37 on Reliability Prediction (1413.1Working Group) and support the ballot-ing process.

System safety Committee:Dr. Takehisa Kohda, Chair:

In 2001 advanced highway cruise sup-port systems (AHS) covering advancedsafety vehicles were evaluated. Typicalhazards newly introduced in these sys-tems were identified and risks generatedby the hazards were estimated. These re-sults are published in transactions/con-ference papers and proceedings.

The 2002 plans to examine a generalframework for the safety design of com-plex systems from the viewpoint of riskmanagement. The introduction of advanceinformation technology in various fieldssuch as chemical plants, nuclear plants,airplanes, and automobile, makes the sys-tem difficult to confirm the safety in thedesign stage. In addition the technicalcommittee plans to develop a web page fordiscussions among technical members aswell as communication to RS members.

Sensors Committee: Dr. KennethP. LaSala, acting Chair:

In June ’02, the IEEE SENSORS con-ference will be held in Orlando, FL. Todate, the first three sensor journal issueshave been mailed to subscribers

TC Committee: H. AnthonyChan, Chair:

In 2001, efforts were put in place sothat RAMS would incorporate a tutorialand a technical session on stress testingand screening. This is now an integralpart of the RAMS program. For 2002plans include to develop test and screen-ing standards processes.

Presently, the following committeechairs were present at the TECH Opsmeeting, but I am missing a summary re-port. Please send me your 2001 resultsand 2002 plans via e-mail.1) International Reliability:Joseph R. Fragola ()2) Microelectronic Technologies:Alan Street (alan@irsi.com)3) Aerospace & Defense Systems:Dave Franklin ()4) Information Technology & Communi-

cations:John Healy (healyj@cs.com)

The following committees are active,but a chair did not attend the Tech Opsannual meeting. Please send me your2001 results and 2002 plans via e-mail.1)Automotive Systems:

Clement Aladekugbe ()2) Energy Systems:

Mark Lively (MbeLively@aol.com)

The Following committees are Inac-tive, and do not have a chair:1) Reliability Design:2) Warranty:3) Medical Systems:

AdCom Meeting Agenda

IRPS – Dallas – April 2002

Saturday’s Meeting8:30 Welcome

Hoffman8:40 Minutes Approval

Voas (Keene)9:00 Treasurer Report – 2001

and YTD 2002

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Kowalski9:20 VP Pubs Status Report

Loomis9:40 VP Tech Ops Status Report

Tonti10:00 VP Membership Status Report

Campbell10:20 VP Meetings Report

Healy10:40 Jr Past President Report10:40 By-Laws &

Constitution ChangesLaSala

11:10 New AwardLaSala

11:20 Treasurer Report – 2002and 2003 BudgetKowalski

11:40 IEEE Tax ImpactHoffman / Kowalski

12:00 Lunch1:00 Society Members /

Subsidize / DiscussionHoffman / All

2:00 Revenue DevelopmentHoffman

2:30 Membership / Chapter PlansCampbell

3:00 Pubs PlansLoomis

3:30 Conference / Seminar PlansHealy

4:00 Tech Ops PlansTonti

4:30 DiscussionAll

5:00 Adjourn

Sunday Meeting8:30 Call to Order

Hoffman8:35 IEEE Awards Board

Holton9:05 Discussion

All9:15 Singapore Chapter Status Report

Pey9:30 2003 RS Pricing

Kowalski9:45 Discussion

All10:00 Consolidate / Agree upon

Society PlansVoas (Keene)DiscussionAll

12:00 Adjourn and Lunch

Marsha Abramo, Tim Drummond,and Dick Doyle were present and repre-sented the Reliability Society at the Firstever IEEE Nanotechnology Conferenceheld 28-30 Oct 2001 at the Outrigger Ho-tel in Maui, Hawaii. All three members ofour Team chaired 2 sessions each duringthe conference. It was a very valuable ex-perience for all 180 participants that at-tended. The conference was well run andfinancially successful.

The 2nd Annual IEEENanotechnology Conference will be heldAugust 26-28, 2002 at the WashingtonHilton in Washington, DC with Dr. Clif-ford Lau and Conference Chairman.

At the Hawai i Confe rence aNanotechnology AdCom meeting washeld (27 Oct 2001) with MarshaAbramo, Tim Drummond, and DickDoyle in attendance. At the meetingDennis Hoffman’s Email approving theCouncil’s C&BL (with reservations)was placed on the view graph showingthe RS position of requesting an Ex-panded Field of Interest. Reliability isnow included in the present Topics ofinterest. Also in the same email was therequest to have 2 members from eachsociety on the council (a primary and al-ternate) with only one vote per society.Pencil changes were made on thatchange and accepted unanimously. TheReliability Society has appointed AnnCampbell as our primary representativeand Ken La Sala as our alternate repre-sentative.

The IEEE Nanotechnologies Coun-cil has been officially sanctioned bythe IEEE Board of Directors at theirlast meeting (February 17, 2002) inTempe, Arizona. The Reliability Soci-ety is one of 19 IEEE societies repre-sented on the Council and is playing avery active roll.

We have established many good al-l i a n c e s i n t h e fa s t g r ow i n gNanotechnologies Council. RS needsto continue our involvement and helpshape its future.

Sincerely,Richard Doyle, RS Past President

Email: r.doyle@ieee.org

ISSRE’ 2001 HighlightsISSRE’2001 was sponsored by both

IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Reli-ability Society. It began with a day of Tu-torials, followed by three days of the coreconference. The core conference in-cluded the Industry Day to host presenta-tions from Industry, followed by 2 days ofmultiple tracks by refereed papers, panelsand fast abstracts. On the Tutorials Daythe first Workshop on Software Assess-ment (WOSA) was also be held.

The lure of Hong Kong and the greatwork of ISSRE’2001 program committeeto encourage submissions resulted in asubstantial increase in submitted papersover last year. We had close to 100 sub-missions for refereed regular papers,from which we accepted 38 papers, giv-ing us an acceptance rate slightly lowerthan 40%, which was among the lowestacceptance rates in the past ISSREs.

In addition to refereed regular papers,ISSRE’2001 highlights four excellentkeynote speakers. They are: TerrenceHeng, Senior VP, Motorola; SteveMcConnell, CEO, Construx Software;Kalyana Rao, Executive VP and CTO,Satyam Computers Services Ltd.; andDalibor F. Vrsalovic, President, IntelOn-line Services Inc. There were also 14Industry Presentations from US Airforce,NIST, Motorola, IBM Research, CiscoSystems, Korea Advanced Institute,Hitachi Ltd, and Sony Corporation, etc.In addition, 4 panel sessions, 21 Fast Ab-stracts, and 13 Student Poster paperswere presented in ISSRE’2001. Most ofthese contents appeared in anISSRE’2001 Supplementary Proceed-ings. In conclusion, ISSRE’2001 pro-gram included 100 presentations ofvarious disciplines and topics surround-ing the subject of software reliability en-gineering.

The rich contents and variety ofISSRE’2001 program had attractedwidespread supports from both the acad-emy and the industry. A total of 12 orga-nizations had jointly supported theconference. They are: The Chinese Uni-versity of Hong Kong, The Hong KongPolytechnic University, The Universityof Hong Kong, Sino Software ResearchInstitute, Hong Kong University of Sci-ence and Technology, Hong Kong Pro-ductivity Council, Hong Kong Computer

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Society, Software Dioxide, Honeywell,IBM, Motorola and Word Wide WebConsortium.

About 130 attendees had participatedin ISSRE’2001. This marked a high levelof attendance (close to previousISSRE’2001 attendance level) compar-ing with other IEEE sponsored confer-ences after the 911 event.

At the same time, a post-conferencesurvey reflected the following encourag-ing responses from the attendees :1. Positive feedbacks were received on

meals, organization and registrationarrangements, etc.

2. 3/4 of the attendees who filled out thesurvey were first-time newcomers toISSRE, indicating a significant in-crease of new bloods to the SoftwareReliability community as it was for thefirst time held in Asia.

3. Over 85% of the respondents will rec-ommend the conference to their col-leagues or will attend the conferencenext time.

4. High compliments were received onthe quality of Keynote speakers’ pre-sentations with some commented thatISSRE’2001 has the best set of Ple-nary/Keynote speakers at any confer-ence they have attended.A short listed comment from the re-

spondents are directly quoted below:� The organizers did a wonderful job.

The best conferences I have at-tended in the past 5 years areISSRE2001 and ISSRE 2000.

� Technical staff did a wonderful jobarranging the presentation equip-ment. The conference was smoothand comfortable throughout theweek.

� I really got what I need to know.� I wanted to learn about the topic

from the software side and found theconference very interesting.

� Unexpected to get a good overviewof our current “state of the art”. Myexpectations were met.

� Best set of plenary / keynote speak-ers at any conference I have attendedover 20 years.

� Hotel was great, especially for theprice. The service is as good as Ihave ever seen.

� Session chairs did a good job in timecontrol.

� It was a good idea to eliminate ToolsFair - we don’t have critical mass tomake it work well.

� Review and comments on the sub-mitted paper are professional andexcellent. However, the presenta-tion files should also be reviewed toguarantee the quality of presenta-tions.

ISSRE’2001 is a showcase of the dedi-cated hard work done by the ISSRE’2001Program Committee in the previous year.It helps to lay the groundwork for the suc-cess of ISSRE’2002 that is held in Year2002.

Selected ISSRE Abstracts todemonstrate the value of theconference

Belli, F., “Finite-State Testing ofGraphical User Interfaces”

Based on finite-state automata (FSA)and equivalent regular expressions, thepaper introduces a holistic view of faultmodeling that can be carried out as a com-plementary step to system modeling, re-vealing much rationalization potential.Appropriate formal notions will be usedto introduce efficient algorithms to sys-tematically generate and select test cases.The completeness of the test can be deter-mined exploiting the link coverage of thestate transition diagram of the FSA thatmodels both the desired and undesiredbehavior of the system under test; this en-ables a precise scalability of the test andanalysis process, leading to a bettercost-effectiveness The elements of theapproach will be narrated by realistic ex-amples which will be used also to validatethe approach.

Chang, S-J. and P.T.Z. Kapauan,“Modeling and Analysis of Using Mem-ory Management Unit to Improve Soft-ware Reliability”

Voice and data convergence, voice overpackets and 3G Wireless demand rapidevolvability for switching systems to suc-ceed in the global marketplace. To succeed,a switching platform ‘s software architec-ture must be able to quickly absorb newtechnologies and respond to new marketneeds. This presents a new challenge toswitching software architects because aswitching platform must also be able tomeet very stringent reliability require-ments. One such requirement is no more

than 0.5 minute per year of total downtime(i.e. better than six 9’s in total system avail-ability) as specified in Telecordia ‘sGR-929-CORE. This paper establishes aframework for improving switching plat-form software fault tolerance while meet-ing the needs of fast-time-to-market via theuse of a very common component of mod-ern microprocessor called memory man-agement unit (MMU) and provides amodeling and analytical method for evalu-ating different implementation alternatives.Finally, the paper presents examples basedon modeling a 3G Wireless switching plat-form, to illustrate the effectiveness of usingthe proposed method. Modeling resultsshow more than 200 times improvementcan be achieved with use of MMU.

Cheung, S.C., S.T. Chanson, and Z. Xu,“Toward Generic Timing Tests for Distrib-uted Multimedia Software Systems”

While multimedia software applica-tions are becoming popular, few works ex-ist on testing this important class ofsoftware, especially with respect to itstemporal properties. Traditional softwaretesting techniques mainly deal with func-tional correctness and cannot be directlyapplied to testing timing properties. In thispaper, we present a framework for testingthe generic temporal relations of mediaobjects in distributed multimedia softwaresystems (DMSS). The temporal relationsare based on Allen ‘s basic binary tempo-ral relations between two objects and ex-tended to cover multiple number ofobjects in different streams. We have de-veloped techniques for test case genera-tion and test result analysis based on adistributed tester architecture. A prototypesystem has been built to test a DEC HPASmultimedia presentation system which is atypical multimedia system supportingW3C ‘s SMIL standard Detailed discus-sion on practical issues and illustrationwith a number of actual tests are given.Experimental results have shown that ourframework is effective in detecting timingerrors. The techniques and methodologyare general and can be applied to otherDAISS with only minor modification.

Goseva-Popstojanova K, A.P. Mathur,and K.S. Trivedi, “Comparison of Archi-tecture-Based Software ReliabilityModels”

Many architecture-based software re-liability models have been proposed in

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the past without any attempt to establish arelationship among them. The aim of thispaper is to fill this gap. First, the unifyingstructural properties of the models are ex-hibited and the theoretical relationship isestablished. Then, the estimates providedby the models are compared using an em-pirical case study. The program chosenfor the case study consists of almost10,000 lines of C code divided into sev-eral components. The faulty version ofthe program was obtained by reinsertingthe faults discovered during integrationtesting and operational usage and the cor-rect version was used as an oracle. A setof test cases was generated randomly ac-cordingly to the known operational pro-file. The results show that 1) all modelsgive reasonably accurate estimationscompared to the actual reliability and2)faults present in the components influ-ence both components reliabilities andthe way components interact.

Jeske, D.R., X. Zhang, and L. Pham,“Accounting for Realities when Esti-mating the Field Failure Rate of Soft-ware”

In this paper, we developed a method-ology to predict the failure rate of soft-ware in a field environment. Themethodology accounts for some practicallimitations associated with software fail-ure rate models including, 1) the likelymismatch between test and field environ-ments, 2) non-instantaneous fault re-moval times, and 3) the effect of deferringbug fixes to future releases. A recent pro-ject illustrates the implementation of theprediction methodology, and an analysis

based on the actual field data indicates themethodology worked well for our appli-cation.

Jin, H, and P. Santhanam, “An Ap-proach to Higher Reliability Using Soft-ware Components”

The general belief that component re-use improves software reliability is basedon the assumption that the prior usage hasexposed the potential software faults. Inreality, this is not necessarily true due tothe inherent differences in the environ-ments and usage of the component. Toachieve a high reliability for a compo-nent-based software system, we need re-liable components that interoperateproperly in the new environment. In thispaper, we present a unified approach todo an evaluation of the interoperability ofcomponents. This involves a generic andsystematic capture of the component be-havior that expresses the various assump-tions made by the designers aboutcomponents and their interconnectionsexplicitly. With the information capturedat a semantic level, this approach can de-tect potential mismatches betweencomponents in the new environment andgive guidance on how to resolve the mis-matches to fit components in the newcontext. The capture of this informationin an appropriate format and an auto-mated analysis can show serious expo-sures to reliability in a component-basedsystem, before it is integrated.

White, L., H. Almezan, and N.Alzeidi, “User-Based Testing of GUI Se-quences and Their Interactions”

Testing Graphical User lnterfaces(GUls) is difficult, involving many states,inputs and events. We have previously re-ported a new method for testing GUls thatis scalable and concentrates on user se-quences of GUl objects and selectionsthat collaborate, called complete interac-tion sequences (CIS) and that produce thedesired response for the user called theresponsibility. In this paper we will ex-tend this approach by investigating theuse of memory tools to detect missing ef-fects and CIS sequences, investigating in-teractions between CIS sequences, andproviding empirical studies of five differ-ent GUI systems.

Bassin, K. , S. Biyani and P.Santhanam, “Evaluating the SoftwareTest Strategy for 2000 Sydney Olympics”

The 2000 summer Olympic Gamesevent was a major information technol-ogy challenge. With a fixed deadline forcompletion, its inevitable dependency onsoftware systems and immense scope, thetesting and verification effort was criticalto its success. One way in which successwas assured was the use of innovativetechniques using ODC based analysis toevaluate planned a~zd executed test ac-tivities. These techniques were used toverify that the plan was comprehensive,yet efficient, and ensured that progresscould be accurately’ measured. This pa-per describes some of these techniquesand provides examples of the benefits de-rived. We also discuss the applicability ofthe techniques to other software projects.

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2001 Annual Statistics of the IEEE are Now AvailableOnline! – URL Correction

The URL for the Annual Statistics of the IEEE was in-correctly stated in the March 2002 issue of Chapter Briefs.You can find the report at the correct address:http://www.ieee.org/secrpt. This report includes a break-down of Membership by Society and Grade, Region, Sectionand Chapter. A particularly useful tool for Chapter develop-ment efforts can be found in Section C, Table 3. This tableprovides counts of Members for each Society in each Sec-tion. This may be useful if you are looking to increase yourChapter’s membership by becoming a joint Chapter.

Access to the Annual Statistics of the IEEE is passwordprotected. You can access the data using the same web ac-count used to access papers and articles on IEEE Xplore?. Ifyou do not already have a web account, you can register forone at: http://www.ieee.org/web/accounts/

For more information regarding Chapter DevelopmentOpportunities, please contact April Nakamura at +1 732 5623846, e-mail: a.nakamura@ieee.org.

Standards NewsCALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

IEEE P1616 WORKING GROUP- CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Motor Vehicle Event Data Recorders(MVEDRs)

The IEEE P1616 standard will pro-vide a minimum data subset that will al-low uniformity and enhance the value ofcrash data extensibility to provide forgrowth and product differentiation thatwill be openly shared with the public, in-dustry and government. For more on thisstory, go to http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#1616

IEEE P830 WORKING GROUP -CALL FOR PARTICIPANTSAND REVIEWERS

Software Requirements Specifica-tions

The revision process is beginning forthis standard. For the general goals andcontact information, go to: http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#830

IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETYFORMS THE INFORMATIONASSURANCE STUDY GROUPCALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Employment of Common Criteria Pro-tection Profiles is being considered for KeyTechnology Areas including OperatingSystems; Storage Systems; Database Sys-tems; Firewalls; Biometrics; Smart Cards;Intrusion Detection Systems; Public KeyInfrastructure; Virtual Private Networks;Routers and Gateways; Web Browsers;Telecommunications Switching Devices;and Applications. For more information,go to: http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#study

UPDATEENGINEERS ANDELECTIONEERS JOIN IEEEEFFORT TO CREATE NEWSTANDARDS FOR VOTINGEQUIPMENT

More Than 130 Manufacturers, Elec-tion Officials and Others Aim to MakeVoting More Reliable, Secure and Acces-sible. For more information, go to:h t t p : / / m e m c e n t r a l . s t a n d a r d s .ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#voting

NEWSIEEE-SA UNVEILS NEWCORPORATE ANDINTERNATIONAL AWARDS

IEEE-SA Awards and RecognitionCommittee (ArCom) is now seekingnominations for these prestigiousawards. The nomination deadline is 15May 2002. For a description of theawards and eligibility guidelines, go to:h t t p : / / m e m c e n t r a l . s t a n d a r d s .ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#awards

IEEE INTELLIGENTTRANSPORTATION SYSTEMSDATA REGISTRY (ITS-DR)SUBSCRIPTION FEE WAIVEDFOR 2002

This was made possible through fund-ing from the US Department of Transpor-tation Federal Highway Administration(US DOT FHWA). The ITS-DR is specif-ically designed for the ITS Standards De-veloper, System Integrator, ApplicationDeveloper, Data Dictionary Developer,Procuring Agency and others. It serves asan entry point into a comprehensive col-lection of information devoted to the sup-port of clear-cut interchange and reuse ofdata and data concepts among the variousfunctional areas of intelligent transporta-tion systems. For more information, goto: http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/ s a / m e m b e r / s a n e w s / a r c h i v e s /news15-Mar-02.html#its

IEEE-SA BOARD OFGOVERNORS MEETING 24-26FEBRUARY 2002Piscataway, NJ, US

2002 Committee Appointments Madeby President Ben Johnson

h t t p : / / m e m c e n t r a l . s t a n d a r d s .ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#appointments

Options for Standards Support of OurVolunteer Working Groups http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/m e m b e r / s a n e w s / a r c h i v e s /news15-Mar-02.html#support

Highlights of the IEEE Board of Direc-tors Meeting http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02. html#bod

Awards Report http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#awards

Geographic Portal Rollouthttp://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/s a / m e m b e r / s a n e w s / a r c h i v e s /news15-Mar-02.html#

geoport

Federal Trade Commission Hearingh t t p : / / m e m c e n t r a l . s t a n d a r d s .ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#ftc

Joint Meeting with IEEE-SA CorporateMembers http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#corp

Motions http://memcentral.standards.ieee.org/sa/member/sanews/archives/news15-Mar-02.html#motions

INTERPRETATION REQUESTSRESPONDED TO ON THE WEB

- IEEE Standards Interpretation forIEEE Std 802.3®, 2000 Edition, IEEEStandard for Carrier Sense Multiple Accesswith Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Ac-cess Method and Physical Layer Specifica-tions For more on this story, go tohttp:/ /s tandards. ieee.org/reading/ieee/interp/802.3-2000/index.html

IEEE Standards Interpretations forIEEE Std 980-1994 IEEE Guide for Con-tainment and Control of Oil Spills in Sub-stations. For more on this story, go tohttp:/ /standards. ieee.org/reading/ieee/interp/980-1994.html

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Educational Activities UpdateHarvard Business SchoolPublishing Partners withIEEE

Harvard Business School Publishing(HBSP) has joined the growing list of pre-miere university partners of IEEE. HBSPprovides selected online courses at a 10%discount for IEEE members. Currentlythirteen courses in leadership, manage-ment, and strategy are being offered toIEEE members along with one powerfulperformance resource called HarvardManageMentor [registered trademark].

HBSP courses utilize Harvard BusinessReview articles, interactive case studiesand expert feedback from instructors. Eachcourse is self-contained with all the re-sources you need provided for you online.In one to two hours at your desktop, youcan acquire both new and classic businessconcepts to apply immediately to your job.

To assure your discount, enter throughthe IEEE Educational Activities Board atwww.ieee.org/eab/verify/hbsp/verify.htm.You must pre-register in order to access thecourse list and see the demonstrations ofeach course. The pre-registration in no wayobligates you to buy a course.

For more information about the Part-ners Program, see www.ieee.org/eab/eduPartners.htm, or contact Jason Prue,IEEE Educat ional Act iv i t ies , a tj.prue@ieee.org.

Lynn MurisonOutreach Administrator, IEEE Edu-

cational Activitiesph: 1.732.562.6526

www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/

IEEE EAB Teacher InService Program TrainingWorkshop online forEngineers Week

IEEE Section training for the IEEE Ed-ucational Activities Board (EAB) TeacherIn-Service Program is now available on-line at www.ieee.org/eab/precollege/tispt/index.htm. The program features engineersdesigning and presenting technologicallyoriented subject matter to the Sections’ lo-cal teachers. Sections can have enormousimpact in their hometowns by providingengineering projects for teachers to use.One high school teacher, for instance, overthe course of a year can influence over 125students. Fourteen Sections, from Regions1-8, have already been trained using theseWorkshop materials.

The site documentation is based ontwo in-person Workshops conducted in2001 by Douglas Gorham, EAB Pre-Col-lege Education Manager. Volunteerstrained at the Workshops are called“champions” of the program. They takethe lead in implementing the Teachers’Workshops in their Section. Diane Col-lier, an In-Service “champion” from theFort Worth, Texas (USA) Section who at-tended one of the in-person sessions,commented about the new site, “I have acontact at the Galveston, Texas Sectionthat is interested in the program. Thiswill be excellent for explaining gettingstarted to him.”

The online workshop is complete withstep-by-step instructions on how to de-

velop and implement a pre-collegeteacher-training program. Included aresuggestions on how to identify and reachschool officials; include the sessions aspart of a teacher’s professional develop-ment; and make sure that project ideasconform to state (US) or national(non-US) standards.

The presentations feature hands-onactivities that will allow teachers to takethe activities and concepts back to theclassroom and teach it with assurance.At present there are a list of topics andtwo flyers that the Florida West CoastSection used to entice teachers to theIn-Service Workshop posted at thewebsite. As each Section reports ontheir teacher workshops, the new topicswill be posted. The topics and flyers canserve as examples for further discussionby the Section volunteers.

Over 160 teachers in Florida have at-tended the sessions designed by theFlorida West Coast and Miami Sections.Their response has been enthusiastic andgratifying, with feedback commentsranging from “We need to do more ofthese programs” to “Now we know wherethe resources are IEEE!”

For further information contact DouglasGorham, at d.g.gorham@ieee.org.

Lynn MurisonOutreach Administrator,

IEEE Educational Activitiesph: 1.732.562.6526

www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/

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Meeting NoticesDear Colleague:

My name is Rolf Vollertsen, Commu-nications Chair of the IEEE 2002 Inte-grated Reliability Workshop (IRW).

This advance e-mail of our first Call forPapers is intended to give you the oppor-tunity to start preparing an abstractwhile there is still some time. The com-

mittee of the 2002 IRW cordially invitesyou to submit an abstract describingyour latest reliability related work.

1st CALL FOR PAPERSIEEE 2002 International INTEGRATED RELIABILITY WORKSHOPOctober 21-24, 2002http://www.irps.org/irw/Stanford Sierra Camp, LakeTahoe, CASubmission Deadline: July 5th, 2002

The Integrated Reliability Workshopfocuses on ensuring semiconductor reli-ability through component fabrication, de-sign, characterization, and analysis tools.It provides a unique environment for envi-sioning, developing, and sharing reliabil-ity technology for present and futuresemiconductor applications. Hot reliabil-ity topics of the workshop are: Cu inter-connects, reliability of deep sub-micron,high speed, high frequency devices, newdielectric systems, and reliability model-ing & simulation. We invite you to submita presentation proposal that addresses oneor more of the following topics:

� WAFER LEVEL RELIABILITYTESTS AND TEST APPROACHES

� IDENTIFICATION OF RELI-ABILITY EFFECTS

� NEW OR EXISTING RELIABIL-ITY CHARACTERIZATION ANDPREDICTIONMODELSTOSHOW

� RELIABILITY TEST STRUC-TURES

� CUSTOMER PRODUCT RELI-ABILITY REQUIREMENTS /MANUFACTURER RELIABIL-ITY TASKS

� DESIGNING-IN RELIABILITY(CIRCUITS, PROCESSES, PROD-UCTS)

Your submission should state clearlyand concisely the results of your workand why they are significant. Representa-tive data and/or figures that support yourproposal are REQUIRED. You can sub-mit your work as a paper or a poster.

Preferably, please e-mail your maxi-mum two-page abstract (incl. figures) orairmail (express mail preferred) it with 15copies to either the Technical ProgramChair or the Vice Technical ProgramChair. If you send the proposal by e-mail,please send it as a MS Word document or.pdf file. Your proposal must include thename, affiliation, complete return ad-dress, telephone and telefax numbers,and e-mail address for each author. Tele-fax submissions will NOT be accepted.All submissions will be acknowledgedwithin three weeks. If you do not receiveacknowledgment of your submission,please contact the Technical ProgramChair. Visual aids for the ACCEPTEDproposals are required by September 17,2002 for inclusion in the PresentationHandout available at the workshop. Awritten version of your presentation isdue at the workshop for inclusion in theFinal Report.

Mail to: Gennadi BersukerIRW 2002 Technical Program Chairnternational SEMATECH706 Montopolis Dr.Austin, TX 78741-6499USA(512) 356-7045(512) 356-7640 (FAX)gennadi.bersuker@sematech.org.... or...

Alvin StrongIRW 2002 Technical Program Vice

ChairInternational Business Machines MD1000 River Street (ZIP 967A)Essex Junction, VT 05452USA(802) 769-1326(802) 769-1220astrong@us.ibm.com

A few words about our Workshopenvironment:

From the moment you arrive at thesouth shore of Fallen Leaf Lake, you real-ize that you are taking part in somethingspecial. The IEEE Integrated ReliabilityWorkshop (IRW) is quite a bit differentfrom a typical technical conference. At-tendees stay in cabins without TVs orphones, dress is casual (suits, ties andhigh heels are shunned), affiliations aredownplayed, and meals are served at thelodge dining room, family-style. Atten-dees of the workshop are expected to ac-tively participate and you feel yourselfdrawn into technical discussions from thestart. This peaceful setting, free from thedistractions and annoyances of modernlife, presents a terrific opportunity to re-ally get to know your colleagues, includ-ing internationally renown experts, anopportunity not usually available at big-ger, more hectic reliability conferences.Every aspect of this conference, from theisolated location to the format of the tech-nical program to the Wednesday after-noon off, is designed to get attendees tointeract and network.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:More information including links anda complete downloadable version(.pdf) of the Call for Papers is availableon the IRW WebSite at www.irps.org/irw.We look forward to receiving your ab-stract and to meeting you in Tahoe!

Kind regards,Rolf-P. Vollertsen

IRW 2002 Communication ChairInfineon Technologies NA Corp.

1000 River Street (967A)Essex Junction, VT 05452

Phone: +1 802 769 2823Fax: +1 802 769 4304

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Preliminary Notice

DSD’2002EUROMICRO SYMPOSIUM ON DIGITAL SYSTEM DESIGN:Architecture, Methods, and Tools

http://www.co.umist.ac.uk/ dsd2002Dortmund, Germany, September 4 - 6, 2002

The Symposium on Digital SystemDesign addresses architectures and im-plementations of (embedded) digital sys-tems, as well as efficient design methodsand tools. It is a discussion forum for theresearch community working onstate-of-the-art investigations, develop-ment, and applications in digital systems,

processor and memory architectures anddesign, application specific processors,systems-on-a-chip, hardware/softwareco-design, circuit design, system valida-tion, and design automation.

The main areas of interest are:� Processor and memory architec-

tures

� Special architectures and reconfig-urable computing

� Specification and modelling� Validation� Synthesis� System-on-a-chip

Check the DSD’2002 web sitehttp://www.co.umist.ac.uk/dsd2002

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Relex PRISM Reflects Advances in ReliabilityAnalysis

Greensburg, PA, January 24, 2002Relex Software Corporation, the world-

wide leader in reliability analysis software,has recently added the PRISM standard toits powerful arsenal of supported reliabilityprediction models. Originally developedby the Reliability Analysis Center (RAC)for predicting Mean Time Between Fail-ures (MTBF) and analyzing system reli-ability, the PRISM standard has beencompletely integrated into the Relex Reli-ability Software Suite.

“Any failure information calculatedby Relex PRISM is immediately avail-able for use in other Relex modules,” saidKevin Van Fleet, Vice President of RelexSoftware Corporation. “Relex’s commondatabase ensures that Relex RBD, RelexFault Tree, Relex FMEA, and all otherRelex modules and reliability standardscan use the MTBF and reliability predic-tion values generated by Relex PRISM.”

According to Van Fleet, Relex PRISMraises reliability analysis to a new level byproviding for adjustments to base failure

rate estimates using Bayesian analysis,predecessor data, and process grades. Forexample, early in the development phaseof a system, reliability estimates are basedon generic parts lists and default values foroperational profiles and stresses. As testand field data become available, Bayesiananalysis uses this empirical data to modifyinitial reliability predictions.

“Integrating test and field data into pre-dictions provides for obtaining failurerates that are more representative of indi-vidual applications,” explained Van Fleet.“Because specific variables that impact re-liability cannot be included and accountedfor in generic models, Bayesian analysisincorporates empirical data to strengthenthe prediction foundation.”

Similarly, predecessor analysis usesthe reliability prediction of a predecessorproduct and its observed field failure rateas the basis for estimating the reliabilityof a “new” product. Because a new prod-uct is much more likely to be a marginalimprovement rather than a revolutionary

advancement upon a predecessor prod-uct, predecessor analysis can factor in thefield failure rate experience of the prede-cessor product to improve the reliabilityprediction for the new product.

To account for process-related vari-ability, the PRISM standard uses processgrades. Answers to a series of questionsfor each of nine different processes—in-cluding design, part quality, manufactur-ing pract ices , and managementtechniques—establish scores that are to-taled and then translated into a quantita-tive pi factor multiplier that impacts thepredicted failure rate. “Because the fail-ure rate a product experiences in the fieldcan depend upon the processes used bymanufacturers, process grades adjustfailure rate predictions by the pi factormultiplier calculated by Relex PRISM toincrease accuracy,” said Van Fleet.

According to certified reliability engi-neers at Relex Software Corporation, thePRISM standard adopts a broader scope topredicting reliability by accounting for the

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primary factors that influence the inabilityof a system to perform its intended func-tions. “When our engineers were imple-menting the PRISM standard within Relex,they quickly realized that Bayesian analy-sis, predecessor data, and process gradescould be and should be extended to all ofthe reliability standards that we support,”said Van Fleet. “So now, when RelexPRISM is licensed, all of its analytical tech-niques for adjusting and optimizing basefailure rates can be used by Relex with anyother supported reliability standard, includ-ing MIL-HDBK-217 and Telcordia.”

An additional incentive for licensingRelex PRISM is the ability to select partsfor analysis from the latest NonelectronicParts Reliability Data (NPRD) and Elec-tronic Parts Reliability Data (EPRD) pub-lished by RAC. Base failure rates forNPRD and EPRD parts can be used in reli-ability predictions whenever a reliabilitycalculation model for a specific part typeis not found in MIL-HDBK-217,Telcordia (Bellcore), or the Mechanical

Reliability Handbook. NPRD allows forthe selection of a single line item from me-chanical and electro-mechanical partssuch as actuators, bearings, brakes,clutches, gears, pumps, seals, springs, andvalves. EPRD, on the other hand, providesfor the selection of multiple line itemsfrom electronic parts such as capacitors,diodes, integrated circuits, inductors, re-sistors, thyristors, transformers, and tran-sistors. In addition to offering threesubtype levels for selecting an EPRD part,Relex PRISM enables the entry of criteriafor part quality, environment, andhermeticity (where applicable), and thenautomatically calculates the requiredmerged failure rate. Having access to bothNPRD and EPRD parts not only makes re-liability analysis easier and faster but alsoensures that results are more accurate.

About Relex SoftwareCorporation

Relex Software Corporation is a worldleader in reliability analysis software. Its

products are used by thousands of engi-neers in a variety of businesses around theglobe. In business since 1986, Relex Soft-ware Corporation asserts that its mission isto produce a superior line of high-qualitysoftware tools for reliability analysis.Long-recognized for their user-friendly,state-of-the-art features, the modular toolsin the Relex Reliability Software Suite in-clude an intuitive graphical user interface,support for scientific graphical charts, anenhanced CAD interface, visual systemmodeling with redundancy support, com-pletely customizable output reports, exten-sive parts libraries, and a comprehensiveonline help system. For more informationon Relex Software Corporation, anIS0-9001 and TickIt 2000 certified com-pany, call 724.836.8800 or visitwww.relexsoftware.com.

Dear Dr Samuel Keene,I read your article with great interest.I came across implementation of Six

Sigma with the following steps: Define,Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control. Butin a design environment where it is noteasy to get many samples in early phase, Ilearnt that that is other implementationsteps —- namely, IDOV ==> whichstands for: Identify, Design, Optimiseand Validate.

Is it possible to compare the differ-ences in approach and share your views inthe next issue of IEEE Reliability SocietyNewsletter?

It is also noted that to implement SixSigma, we need to involvement of top

management. My personal observations(having worked in a design environmentfor some time) is that if the next in linedon’t “believe” in Six Sigma, it is verydifficult to push Six Sigma. In my discus-sion with speaker of Six Sigma, I learntthat there is a certain strategy of ap-proach, namely: (in order of merit)1. Manufacturing, Assembly, Supplier,

Packaging, etc.2. Process, Engineering, etc.3. Sales, Marketing, etc.4. Customer5. Development

I see some truth in this strategy. If westart pushing Six Sigma at Development,

and the Manufacturing is at another coun-try (like in China) where Six Sigma is notunderstood or followed. Every thing thatis Six Sigma driven at the DevelopmentCenter in another country will find diffi-culty in see results. What is your view onthis observation?

Best Regards,LAM WENG KEEN

BCT Mainstream TV DevelopmentKnow-how & Standard Design(Special Project/Robust Design)

Philips Electronics Singapore Pte LtdTel: (65) 3502730

620A Lorong 1 Toa PayohSingapore 319762, Fax: (65) 2580892

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Technical Magazine SectionDevice Design Methodology and Reliability Strategyfor Deep Sub-micron Technology

William R. TontiIBM Microelectronics, Essex Junction Vt.

AbstractThis tutorial will discuss device and process optimization

techniques that may be employed in the design of present state ofthe art bulk silicon technology. MOSFET performance and reli-ability issues are contrasted.

Many issues influence a MOSFET’s in-line process and fieldreliability. Ensuring a stable IC design is a great challenge andhas many concerns associated with the scaling of lithographicfeature size. Some of the topics discussed below are investigatedusing present DRAM technology. Including process tolerancesand lifetime shifts during the design of a DRAM transfer devicegreatly influences MOSFET performance and reliability operat-ing point. Given an appropriate relationship for each occurrence,a statistical design methodology ensures product stability. Thedevice off-current ( Iso ) and on-current ( Ion ) trade-offs are theprimary design goals of a given technology. Simple scaling (i.e.Ion ∝µ [C’ox/L]V, Iso ∝ µAe-VT /B) indicates both channellength and/or gate oxide thickness may be used to improveon-current. Assuming this ratio of C’ox /L is increased and allother MOSFET design parameters remain constant, then VTwould decrease and lso would increase undesirably. Adding ad-ditional well/channel doping could be used to correct the design,but this may lead to an increased base VT tolerance,source-to-substrate sensitivity, and substrate hot-carrier prob-lems if not implemented in a manner that minimizes these ad-verse effects. There is an optimum doping profile, whichsatisfies the above conditions.

Today’s state-of-the-art isolation technology is box-shapedand commonly implemented as a trench filled with SiO2. Thisisolation tends to have a parasitic parallel device gated at the iso-lation edges. In some cases, Iso may be constrained by deviceedge count rather than total device width. Edge degradationtherefore becomes a mechanism to characterize in this isolationtechnology. Wafer level and module level burn-in test methodol-ogies are important early-life screens used to disposition prod-uct and improve overall yield by replacing circuit reliabilityfailures with known good spare elements. Wafer burn-in stressesa chip for a short period of time, usually accessing and applyingaccelerated test conditions to critical areas that cannot be highlyaccelerated at the module level. Test coverage at wafer burn-in is100%, and redundancy algorithms can be maximized prior tomodule burn-in. Module burn-in can take on many forms: static,dynamic, in-situ, or combinations of the above to achieve fieldreliability-objectives. This course is organized into four ses-

sions. The first session describes MOSFET time zero design,and the effect of hot carriers on this decision. PMOS-buried andsurface channel designs are contrasted; and a self-consistentsubstrate hot carrier design is described for NMOS transistors.Session II investigates the effect of shallow trench isolation ondevice reliability. Session III describes wafer burn-in screens;and session IV describes module-level burn-in.

William R. TontiWilliam R. Tonti received the B.S.E.E. with honor (1978)

from Northeastern University. He then joined IBM in EssexJunction, Vermont, where he presently is engaged in the devel-opment of PowerPC microprocessor reliability strategies. Previ-ously Dr. Tonti was a program manager in the wiredcommunication space, and has also contributed to the Giga-bitvertical cell DRAM technology development. He received anM.S.E.E. (1982) from the University of Vermont, an M.B.A.(1983) from St. Michael’s College, and a Ph.D. in Electrical En-gineering (1988) from the University of Vermont under the aus-pices of the IBM resident study program. Dr. Tonti is the 2002International Reliability Physics Symposium General Chair-man, and was the 2000 Integrated Reliability Workshop GeneralChairman. He has authored numerous contributed and invitedpapers, and holds over 65 U.S. patents. Dr. Tonti is a member oftau beta pi, eta kappa nu, a senior member of IEEE, an advisoryboard member of the IEEE Transactions on Device and MaterialReliability, a recipient of the IEEE 3’rd millennium medal, andan ABET engineering curriculum evaluator. Dr. Tonti is a cur-rently a member of the Reliability Society ADCOM., and servesas their VP of Technical Operations.

(c) Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 1995, 2001 AllRights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America 08-2001All information contained in this document is subject to change without no-

tice. The information contained in this document does not affect or change IBMproduct specifications or warranties. Nothing in this document shall operate asan express or implied license or indemnity under the intellectual property rightsof IBM or third parties. All information contained in this document was obtainedin specific environments, and is presented as an illustration. The results obtainedin other operating environments may vary.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PRO-VIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS. In no event will IBM be liable for damages aris-ing directly or indirectly from any use of the information contained in thisdocument.

IBM Microelectronics Division1580 Route 52, Bldg. 504Hopewell Junction, NY 12533-6351

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