2006 IRPS KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Adaptation of Reliability Methodologies
To
Market Expectations and Technology Roadmaps
Timothy Collopy
IBM Systems and Technology Group
Director of Quality
The SIA roadmap is loaded with complexities that will stretch the capability of the reliability engineering community - new materials, new structures and continued drive to smaller feature sizes resulting in process/design interactions that need to be anticipated, understood, and resolved. At the same time, our customers are more knowledgeable and demanding of higher performance, improved reliability and faster time-to-market - they want all of these attributes to improve their competitive position. Because these demands have different "weight" in the various market segments, there has been a proliferation of development and qualification requirements.
Since a "one-size-fits-all" approach to the development and qualification strategy will not satisfy all customers or even all products within a customer menu, we base our qualification methods on the most aggressive requirements of our internal server customers and then adapt them to the marketplace demands of the OEM business. Specifically, our fundamental reliability models and qualification methods have not changed since we were a captive internal supplier to the IBM mainframe, but we've enhanced these quality processes to accommodate unique customer requirements (e.g. foundry) or industry standards (e.g. JEDEC), while at the same time learning how to stress, analyze, & fix the new fail modes that are uncovered during new technology development. To close the loop, we are now able to take feedback from the full spectrum of users and verify these models and methods, allowing for continuous improvement of our quality processes, just like we demand of our products and technologies.
Tim Collopy
Tim Collopy is the Director of Quality for IBM's Systems and Technology Group, a position he has held since 2001. He joined IBM in 1974 with a BS in Mathematics from the University of Missouri - Rolla. Between 1975 and 1983 while employed at IBM, he completed a BS in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Operations Research, and an MBA in Plans & Controls from Union College in Schnectady, NY. Mr. Collopy has previously held management positions in Process Engineering, Diagnostics and Characterization, Manufacturing Engineering, Reliability Engineering and Analytical Services at IBM's East Fishkill Semiconductor facility. These assignments have shaped his perspective on the role of an effective Quality Group both within the organization and in customer interactions.