TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY FORMS RELIABILITY PARTNERSHIP WITH UMD AND ISRAELI BUSINESSES

Governor of Maryland Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. announced today during a visit to Tel Aviv University the formation of a new research collaboration project between Maryland and the Israeli Electronics Corporation. The Joint Center for Reliable Electronic Systems (CRES) will conduct and coordinate joint reliability research between the University of Maryland Clark School of Engineering and the Tel Aviv University Fleischman Faculty of Engineering.

The Center’s mission is to study the reliability of “commercial off the shelf parts” (COTS) currently used in sophisticated electronics and to develop guidelines for increased lifetime without sacrificing quality. CRES will also serve as an academic resource for seminars and training to Israeli and outside companies who design, build and maintain robust systems where the expected life far exceeds that of the COTS from which the systems are built.

“Israel’s economy is heavily dependent on durable products, with more than half her electronics output sold in the Military, Aerospace, Medical, Telecom and Infrastructural markets” said Dr. Joseph Bernstein, Associate Professor, University of Maryland Reliability Program who is Visiting at Tel-Aviv University. “Israel is the ideal place to form a center that serves high-reliability manufacturers because her economy uniquely depends on providing long lifetime, low maintenance cost products built with COTS that are normally designed for consumer electronics.”

Attending the announcement were representatives from IAI, Rafael, Elbit, Tower semiconductor as well as Maryland based companies including Northrup Grumman, BAE Systems and M/A-COM.

“We look forward to many years of this kind of mutually beneficial collaboration between Maryland and Israel,” said Dr. Itamar Rabinovich, president of Tel-Aviv University.

Published November 15, 2003