NEW! SC347 Reliability and Qualification of Fiber-Optic Components

Monday, March 22, 2010
1:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.
David Maack; Corning, USA
Level: Beginner (no background or minimal training is necessary to understand course material)


Course Description

Reliability is one of the most important requirements for our modern telecommunication systems. It is one of the first areas of intensive inquiry for a new supplier and potentially one of the biggest problems in deployed systems. An unreliable sub-component can easily bring down entire systems and, in the worst scenario, force recalls costing thousands of times the original components price leading to substantial financial liabilities and highly strained customer-vendor relationships.

Qualification programs are performed primarily to reduce the high costs of true reliability programs, and as such, act as a proxy for reliability. Passing of the qualification tests is assumed to assure a certain level of reliability with confidence that the component meets the requirements for a particular application. Although this assumption generally holds true in mature industries such as electronics where the modes of failure are well understood, it can be a dangerous path to follow in technically immature industries such as photonics. Qualification and reliability must both be done for photonic components.

This "new" course is a combination of two prior courses, “Reliability Methodologies for Fiber Optic Components” and “Qualification Programs for Fiber Optic Components,” along with new material which tries to bridge the relationship and gap between qualification and reliability. When is it appropriate to rely on the qualification tests and when must expensive and time consuming reliability models be developed? This is a difficult balance that goes beyond just technical analysis; it involves risk taking, business decisions, judgment and experience.


Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Understand the difference between performance, qualification and reliability testing.
  • Discuss and learn what constitutes a complete qualification program and get the author’s interpretation of the “letter of the law” for the most popular standards.
  • See detailed charts comparing different qualification standards
  • Appreciate what each of the qualification tests really test for and its limitations
  • Determine why and when reliability testing and modeling needs to be done.
  • Establish appropriate reliability tests and gather meaningful data.
  • Apply the basics of reliability testing and modeling mathematics to determine the proper statistical distribution for a set of failure data.
  • Calculate the reliability of a device using accelerated testing data with case studies for guidance.
  • Find information on standards, components, reliability software and other reference materials.
  • Read reliability and qualification reports and determine their adequacy.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for a general audience including non-technical persons with no particular background except an interest in or need for knowledge of reliability and qualification of fiber optic components. It is meant to impart valuable information to audiences of all levels.


Biography

David Maack has more than 30 years of engineering and management experience in photonics with the last 12+ years in qualification and reliability for passive and active fiber optic components. Currently, he is the reliability lead for the Green Laser Project at Corning, Inc. in Corning, NY. He is the past chairman of the IEC TC86B Working Group 5 writing standards for passive fiber optic components, has participated in multiple Telcordia GR rewrites, and is the author of numerous papers. He has bachelor's degrees in physics and nuclear science along with a master's degree in business administration.