Product reliability expert becomes IEEE fellow

Once there were eight—now CityU boasts nine Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the elite among the world's largest professional body of electronic engineers and scientists. 

Professor Archie Y C Chan, Professor (Chair) of Electronic Engineering and Director of Electronic Packaging and Assemblies, Failure Analysis and Reliability Engineering (EPA) Centre, is newly elected FIEEE thanks to his contributions to electronic product reliability.

Professor Chan has rich experience in engineering management and operations in the electronics manufacturing industry. As an academic, he emphasizes research work that brings direct and practical benefits to the community and university-industry collaboration.

"My work in electronic product reliability is an area of endeavour I undertook exclusively at CityU after I joined the University in 1991," Professor Chan remarked. Professor Chan has written over 150 scientific articles/journals and received over HK$50 million in reserach funding from the University, government and industry.

With fiscal support from the Innovation and Technology Commission, Professor Chan established the EPA Centre in 1998. The Centre, one of the three Applied Strategic Development Centres at CityU, aims to nurture high-end applied R&D in advanced electronic packaging and assemblies. It also provides "one-stop-shop" services to local and regional electronics manufacturers. In 2001, the Centre was certified as an Accredited Laboratory under the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme.

With 380,000 individual members in 150 countries worldwide, the IEEE is the leading professional association in areas of computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications, electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics. Less than 0.1% of its members are elected Fellows each year. In the latest round of elections for 2004, a total of 260 IEEE Senior Members were promoted to Fellows -- the highest honour in the organization's membership. In 2004, only four academics from the Hong Kong section became Fellows.

Of CityU's nine IEEE Fellows, eight are in the Department of Electronic Engineering, and one is in the Department of Physics and Materials Science.