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ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 19 NO. 1
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ready for their FA job, but it alsoprovided a recipe for other
universities on how to set up such a program. Next, the
theme was at the center of the Panel Discussion, which
quickly turned into a very interactive discussion among
the audience and panelists. It was a pleasure to observe
the passion, drive, and engagement of every participant.
You will find a summary of the Panel Discussion on page
33 in this issue. Finally, the Student Poster Session fea-
tured ten contributions from two local universities: the
University of Texas at Arlingtonwith nine posters, andRice
University with one poster. I observed great interactions
between the presenting students and the attendees, who
were interested to learn about the students’ research,
which, by the way, is outstanding.
Other constants of theprogramreturned to ISTFA2016:
two short courseswere held on the Saturday before ISTFA;
twenty tutorials were offered, including two new ones;
four User Groups were held; and a sold-out Tools of the
Trade Tour featured eleven companies.
DONE BY VOLUNTEERS
Of course, creating such a program involves hardwork
bymany people, nearly all of whomare volunteers. These
volunteers spend tremendous hours of their free time in
various roles, all toward the goal of creating an outstand-
ing Symposium. I cannot thank themenough for their hard
work, but I can recognize them here: Vice General Chair
Sam Subramanian (NXP Semiconductors), Past General
Chair James Demarest (IBM), Technical Program Chair
Efrat Moyal (LatticeGear), Attendee Chair Felix Beaudoin
(Globalfoundries), Audio/Visual Chairs David Grosjean
(Butterfly Network) and Zhigang Song (Globalfoundries),
Expo Chair Becki Watt (Mentor Graphics), Tutorial and
Short CourseChairs SusanLi (Cypress Semiconductor) and
Mayue Xie (Intel), Panel Chairs Frank Altmann (Fraunhofer
CAM) and Kendall Scott Wills (KAB Global Enterprises),
User Groups Chairs Rick Livengood (Intel) and Baohua
Niu (TSMC), Local Arrangements Chair Becky Holdford
(retired), and the VideoContest Chair RoseRing (Qorvo). In
addition to theseOrganizingCommitteeChairs, therewere
38 Tutorial and Paper Session Chairs as well as approxi-
mately 100 reviewers—all volunteers. The Organizing
Committeewas professionally supportedbyKathyMurray,
Lindy Good, and Christina Sandoval of ASM International
and sponsored by EDFAS through its presidents Cheryl
Hartfield and Zhiyong Wang.
The ISTFA Organizing Committee is always looking for
new volunteers. If you would like to participate in orga-
nizing ISTFA or become a reviewer, please contact one of
the ISTFA 2017 Organizing Committee members. You will
find their contact information on the ISTFA 2017webpage
at istfa.org. If you have a suggestion for new tutorials
or would like to create one, please go to the ISTFA 2017
webpage and submit your ideas.
NOT ALL WORK
ISTFA’s Technical Program is taxing—a full program
from early morning to early evening—so relaxing and
mingling at the Social Event is a welcome break. This
year’s Social Event was held at Billy Bob’s Texas, where
we enjoyed good Texas BBQ, drinks, livemusic, andmore.
The highlight was a bull-riding event, where professional
cowboys tried to stay atopa violentlybuckingbull for eight
seconds. Great fun! Oh yes, someone must have told the
band that the General Chair likes line dancing.
COME BACK FOR ISTFA 2017
In closing, ISTFA 2016 was a great success: an excel-
lent Technical Program, a larger number of high-quality
papers, and a growing number of attendees as well as
companies displaying on the Expo floor. I invite you to
come back for ISTFA 2017, which will be held November
5 to 9 in Pasadena, California.
Whether networking at events or accessing information through
EDFA
, ISTFA proceedings, or journals, our members
have the edge. Now it’s time to introduce EDFAS to others in the industrywhowould like to take advantage of these career-
enhancing benefits. Help us help the industry by expanding our membership and offering others the same exceptional
access to information and networking that sets EDFAS apart. To reacquaint yourself with and introduce others to the
EDFAS member benefits, visit asminternational.org/web/edfas/membership.
EDFAS MEMBERSHIP
ISTFA 2016 _ WOW!
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