Failure Analysis and Product Liability Materials and Manufacturing Expert

Technical Consultant #1944

Vacuum process development.
Process development for active devices, thin film circuits, thin film deposition and thin film optics.
Manufacturing equipment and tooling design.
Thin film coating.
Manufacturing safety.
Failure analysis (device, glass, metal and ceramics).
Device reliability and reliability statistics.
Photo patterning process development and introduction (spin on and lamination).
Electroless and electrolytic plating processes.
Statistical design of experiments.
Physical and mechanical metallurgy.

Expert Witness Experience

Over 25 years of experience as a consultant to attorneys in accident reconstruction.
User safety: Product Liability and equipment design (Includes device safety, factory safety and machine guards).
Failure analysis (includes both materials and design).
Glass damage and glass failures: Jars, bottles (wine and champagne), windows, windshields, dishes, and cook wear.
Polymer (plastic) failures: (includes composite materials); ladders packaging, chairs, bottles, and bungee cords.
Metallurgical failures: Bolts, welds, pipes, gears, ladders, straps, cables brackets, and cutting blades.
Corrosion failures: Galvanic, general; this includes materials selection and electronic devices.
Ceramic failures: Fired ceramics, grinding wheels, cutoff blades and structural ceramics.
Manufacturing defects: Any manufactured Item.
Wood failures: Chairs, ladders, stairs, window leaks, (includes deterioration from rot).
Manufacturing expertise: Includes patents, tooling, processing, product design, factory safety (machine guards), quality control, quality verification, reverse engineering and factory procedures.

Undisclosed Company, Consultant and Expert Witness, Present

Rheodyne, Inc., Rohnert Park, CA, Senior Project Engineer and Safety Engineer, 2001 - 2001

Developed hard, low wear coatings for high pressure valves for high pressure liquid chromatography applications.
Failure analysis and new product development.
Developed pre-sputter cleaning of stainless steel parts.
Developed a micro-volume pressure gauge for HPLC.

Komag Materials Technology Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, Chief Metallurgist, 1993 - 2001

Positions served: Project Manager for high reliability devices and Plant Safety Engineer.
Developed thin film circuit processes including thin film coating, plating, photolithography and etching.
Manager of a development group focused on key new products.
Developed cleaning processes for computer memory disks.
Developed tooling for cleaning, machining and inspection of discs.
Liaison to Komag material suppliers (Furukawa Aluminum and Kobe Steel).
Liaison to Komag Corporation in the areas of failure analysis and material selection.
Active in manufacturing process improvement projects.
Helped organize worldwide failure analysis for Komag.
Participant in Komag's effort to diversify into the area of fiber optics.
Member of corporate team developing low cost glass substrates.

Deposition Sciences Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, Senior Thin Film Project Engineer, 1988 - 1994

Helped develop unique methods of uniformly vacuum coating curved surfaces with thin film hard materials from oxides, and nitrides.
Developed laminating processes for adhesives and photo-resists.
Developed tooling for cleaning and coating.
Helped develop patented DC reactive sputtering techniques for depositing optical quality oxides, and multi-layer optical films on oxide substrates.
Optical thin film design.
Photo pattering of thin film optical IR filters.

Microwave Technology Inc., Fremont, CA, 1984 - 1988

Reliability Engineering Manager and Thin Film Circuit Engineering Manager

Project Manager for high reliability projects; managed a small group that coordinated all high reliability projects at MTI; this included interfacing with the customers.
Developed and optimized reactive ion etching processes and equipment.
Developed processes for manufacturing active devices (diffusion and ion implanting).
Developed unique device packaging.
Developed numerous thin film vacuum coating processes.
Concurrently responsible for group performing high reliability testing and failure analysis of GaAs, FET'S, and IC's.
Purchased a CPA 9900 and developed a production reactive sputtering process and tooling for coating Ta₂ N/TiW/Au onto Al₂ 0 ₃ substrates.
Helped develop unique techniques for producing conductive via thin film circuits.

Hewlett Packard Co., Santa Rosa, CA, Project Engineer and Engineering Manager, 1975 - 1984

Hands-on manager of a Research and Development group that designed and developed hybrid packaging (polymer and ceramic) for microwave circuits.
Designed RF connectors for microwave communication applications.
Developed processes for manufacturing active devices.
Developed epoxy sealing for high reliability circuit packaging.
Acted as a consultant to several Hewlett-Packard divisions aiding in the solutions of problems related to materials, machining, device failure, and bonding and assembly.
Developed a close die molding process for forming super plastic zinc.
Coordinated several company-wide workshops related to metal working and hybrid.
Assembly processing: This included cleaning and plastic packaging.

Optical Coating Laboratories Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, 1974 - 1975

Senior Thin Film Development Engineer

Responsible for yield improvement on a process for the manufacture of striped Diachroic filters.
Helped raise the yields from 2 per cent to 70 per cent.
Included grinding and polishing of the glass faceplates.
Represented OCLI to their customers to solve various thin film metal corrosion problems with single crystal silicon solar cells.
Corporate materials scientist responsible for thin film failure analysis and surface analysis.

Corning Glass Works, Corning, NY, Senior Research and Development Engineer, 1972 - 1974

Senior Research and Development engineer involved with the development of glass.
Finishing and cleaning processes and the design of the related production equipment.
Involved with sheet glass quality evaluation and glass failure analysis.
Developed glass and silica machining processes.

Vohwinkler Eisen Werk, Wuppertal Vohwinkel, Germany, Intern, 1965

Learned all aspects of iron casting; this included melting, alloying, molding and finishing.

Failure Analysis Associates, Stanford, CA, Associate Engineering Consultant, 1968 - 1972

Aided engineers with failure analysis of materials such as; metals, fabrics, plastics, and ceramics.

Credentials

Certified Registered Professional Manufacturing Engineer
Stanford University, Corning Fellowship
Metallurgy Certification: Tercer Curso Pan Americano de Metalurgia, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Languages

Academic and Professional Affiliations

Awards

Publications and Patents

Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
M.Sc. Materials Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
B.S. Metallurgical Engineering, (Dean's Highest Honors) University of Pennsylvania, Phila., PA