Society News

The Joint-Section Chapter for Boston / New Hampshire / Providence has continued with a great series of monthly presentations on various topics. Details on the December and January presentations can be found in their newsletter at h ttp://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/rl/newsletters/boston_chapter_newsletter_feb14.pdf.

On December 11, 2013 Dr. Vanu Bose spoke about "Survivability for Public Safety Networks". Dr. Bose is the founder and CEO Vanu Inc., which is dedicated to technical innovation to enable cellular coverage in areas that cannot be covered cost effectively with existing technology. The talk focused on survivability and reliability, including an intriguing examination of the assumption that higher availability is an appropriate metric for a public safety network. Dr. Bose explained that by adjusting to a more appropriate metric, not only can survivability be improved, but costs can also be lowered. He had several anecdotes to drive home his point. The December meeting also honored the past Chairs of the Boston Reliability Chapter.

On January 15, 2014 Ethan Cascio, Radiation Effects Test Program Manager at The Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, spoke about "Those Upsetting Ions - The Effects of Radiation on Electronics." This topic is relevant to anyone interested in how electronic components are tested for deployment in a radiation environment, such as for space applications.

February 12, 2014 Aaron Dermarderosian of Raytheon will speak about "Counterfeit Analysis & Prevention - Detection & QC Non-Conformance Issues; Hardware & Data Destruction Assured Domestic Electronics Recycling."

March 12, 2014, we will have a joint presentation with the ESDA (Electrostatic Discharge Association) about "Next Generation ESD Scanning Techniques for Protection Circuit Analysis and Debug." This presentation will address the particularly insidious "soft" ESD failures, which may pass testing and show up as failures later, in contrast to hard ESD failures, which can be identified during testing.

Planning is in progress for April, May, June, and September meetings. The Advisory Committee (AdCom) is seeking additional topics of interest, presenters, and volunteers to participate in the planning and implementation of our meetings. Please visit our site for upcoming activities, presentations from prior events, and the complete chapter newsletter at http://www.ieee.org/BostonRel.

Best regards,
Dr. Dan Weidman
Chair, IEEE Boston Reliability Chapter, joint with Providence, RI and New Hampshire

Please note that at this printing, our newsletter website is "under construction," but will be updated shortly.