Education in reliable electronic packaging

The University of Maryland has a strong education and research program in reliability and quality engineering. The Center for Reliability Engineering is the focus for the educational program and supervises the interdisciplinary academic program leading to the MS and PhD degrees in reliability engineering. The University of Maryland CALCE Electronics Packaging Research Center has developed an integrated program of research in reliable electronics packaging to assist the nation´s electronics industry. The approach utilized by the center is often referred to as concurrent engineering by the defense-related community, because it is intended to bring faculty and students, as well as company engineers and designers together to work as a team, considering from the outset all elements of the product life cycle from conception through disposal. The author presents the educational aspects of these centers within the framework of the University of Maryland and their ties to industry, and how students and industry are being trained to understand the fundamental reliability issues associated with electronics design and manufacture