ITAR issues and lead-free evaluation highlight Military Technologies Conference March 27 and 28 in Boston
By John McHale
BOSTON, 13 March 2007. U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and industry experts will discuss procedures and for negotiating International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) as well methods for dealing with lead-free compliance at the Military Technologies Conference on 27 and 28 March 2007 in Boston.
Register for the conference here at https://www.pennwellregistration.com/online/Login.jsp?confId=180. The conference sponsor is Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine.
The ITAR discussion and the two keynote lead-free presentations are the keynote topic will be part of the conference's opening session on March 27.
The ITAR presentation, "International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Import/Export Regulations: Getting started and complying in a complex design and manufacturing environment," is from Facility Security Officer at Celestica.
Young will address the requirements and license procedures required for designers, manufacturers, systems integrators, and subsystems contractors to ensure compliance with the U.S. Department of State regulations necessary for import/export of ITAR data and products. He will draw on his seven years of experience as Facility Security Officer for Celestica, a global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, where he has implemented extensive procedures, processes, firewalls, and compliance programs. His topics will cover: setting up a company for ITAR; export procedures; control of ITAR documentation and product; and subcontractor/supplier management.
The first keynote presentation on lead free is from Anthony J. Rafanelli, an engineering fellow at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems and Lloyd Condra, Technical Fellow at Boeing Phantom Works on "A Protocol for Reliability Testing of Aerospace and High-Performance Lead-Free Electronic Assemblies."
"Under the facilitation of the Aerospace Industries Association, the Government Electronics Industries Association (GEIA) has stood up a team whose charter is to generate a document with two objectives," Rafanelli and Condra state: "(1) Define a default method for reliability testing of AHP products containing lead-free solder and, (2) establish a protocol for designing, conducting, and interpreting results from reliability tests. This presentation will report on the progress of this team and present information on each of the objectives in an effort to solicit feedback. The presentation will also discuss the diversified team membership and those aerospace and defense perspectives that each brings to the process."
William Russell of Raytheon Professional Services LLC will present "Methodology for Evaluating Data for 'Reverse Compatibility' Solder Joints."
Russell states that "particular attention is being paid today to lead-free components and/or solder alloys being used to repair legacy military electronics. Military hardware, manufactured for decades with eutectic tin/lead solder, is now being caught up in the global shift to lead-free solder. A "backward compatibility" problem occurs as parts suppliers due to market concerns (military is less than 5 percent of market share) eliminate eutectic tin/lead solder as a component finish substituting other finishes (usually electroplated matte tin) on existing part numbers.
"In addition, the proliferation of commercial of the shelf (COTS) hardware into military systems greatly increases the probability of mixing tin/lead and lead-free solders and component finishes within the assembly during repair. The intermixing of tin/lead and lead-free solders raises long-term reliability issues that are yet unanswered. A large database of information was assembled from publicly available data on mixed solder assembly. Methodology was developed for comparing information sources by analyzing Weibull reliability charts for data consistency. Using these comparisons, reliability predictions are made for mixed solder assembly of military electronics, to guide rework and repair options and making informed decisions possible."
The co-authors of Russell's presentation are Dennis Fritz of SAIC, Christian Navarro of Purdue Calumet, Carol Handwerker of Purdue, Lafayette, Gary Latta of NAVSEA Crane, and Andrew Ganster of NAVSEA Crane.
MTC 2007 also has three focused modules led by industry leaders: Networking on the Move, which focuses on the design challenges in providing non line-of-sight communications to military units on the move; Software Implementation for Open Architectures, which discusses how military program managers today adapting legacy code and legacy systems to modern open architectures that are independent of hardware; and Thermal & Power Management Trends for Military Electronics, which covers the challenges and solutions in managing the power and thermal burdens modern high-performance electronics place on military platforms.
The conference will be at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Register for the conference here at https://www.pennwellregistration.com/online/Login.jsp?confId=180. For more information, please visit www.miltechconference.com.
