Engineering-Engineering Technology (58) Through this project, Rochester Institute of Technology [RIT] is adapting the University of Maryland's exemplary program in Electronic Packaging and Reliability and implementing the Reliability Education and Analysis Laboratory [REAL]. The project is integrating reliability and failure analysis concepts and laboratory experience into the undergraduate electronics-packaging curriculum.
The project impacts RIT's existing three-course sequence in electronics packaging, which is open to engineering and technology students in all disciplines, and to practicing engineers. Specific topics include failure modes, failure mechanisms, failure detection, failure modeling, root cause analysis, reliability statistics, prediction, testing and analysis. The laboratory component of REAL includes moisture sensitivity studies, thermal cycling of assemblies, and destructive and non-destructive analysis of assemblies. Through this laboratory experience, the students are able to apply learning reliability theory to today's complex workplace, and to qualify new products and processes. Included is an industry input mechanism to ensure its applicability to the engineering workplace.
The outcomes from REAL are being shared with K-12 educators through Project Lead the Way summer training institutes.
RIT is home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Service to support these students is being incorporated into REAL. The project is leveraging campus-wide resources that provides a sustained recruitment and support mechanism for women and minorities.
The project is focusing on student learning and is incorporating both formative and summative assessments to assess student learning. Techniques such as minute papers, one-sentence summaries, and application cards are being used to provide quick feedback to the teaching/learning process.
