“When it comes to Binghamton’s bright, solar-powered future, bigger is not always better,” he said. “The path to a more prosperous Southern Tier economy is paved with flexible, miniature and transparent solar cells.”

Schumer and U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, who helped secure $8.5 million in federal funding for the CASP facility, were among the speakers at the opening of two laboratories at the New York State Center of Excellence in Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging (S3IP). The May 3 ceremony at the Innovative Technologies Complex also featured comments from University President Harvey Stenger, Interim Vice President for Research Bahgat Sammakia and state Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo. Guests later toured the labs.

The ceremony celebrated the opening of the Center for Autonomous Solar Power’s Solar Laboratory and the co-location of the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center’s (IEEC) Reliability and Failure Analysis Laboratory. Both laboratories are housed in the Biotechnology Building at the ITC.

CASP is a national leader in the research and development of thin film solar cells. Its new laboratory will focus on using inexpensive, non-toxic and abundant materials to develop new solar cell and energy storage technologies. The IEEC conducts research in electronics packaging and provides the results to affiliated companies. The newly relocated Reliability and Failure Analysis Laboratory provides expertise in electronics packaging.

“Binghamton has a strong research tradition that is crucial to the growth of the University and our region,” Stenger said. “These new laboratories provide us with world-class facilities and usher in an era of collaboration and partnerships that will expand the future of our region, and act as a catalyst to reinvent and enhance the technology focus of the Southern Tier.”

Stenger and Sammakia took that technology focus to Albany on April 25 when they presented the University’s NYSUNY2020 plan to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The plan includes the construction of a $70 million, state-of-the-art Smart Energy Research and Development Facility.

“This plan builds on the kinds of successes that we are here to celebrate and are a huge part of Binghamton University’s future,” Stenger said. “These successes would not be possible without the support of our federal and state partners. … It’s remarkable in such a short amount time that we are already recognized as a national leader in the (solar energy) area.”

Schumer noted the economic potential of the new laboratories.

“When we look to the future, we look to Binghamton University,” he said. “When we are looking for jobs in the Southern Tier, we often look to Binghamton University. Too often, New York institutions did research that did not create jobs. We are now focused on things that create jobs — and CASP is on top of the list.”

Research at the CASP lab “will lead to a wealth of applications,” Schumer said, referring to solar-powered sensor networks, systems that allow the charging of laptops and cell phones and cooling systems for soldiers in hot climates.

“Imagine if every window at One World Trade Center was a solar-powered cell,” Schumer said. “That’s what the research could create. … The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure: CASP will be a springboard for innovative solar energy. It has the same kind of potential that IBM had decades ago in Endicott.”

An integral part of the S3IP, the labs will bring together government, academia and industry partners to collaborate in areas such as electronics, healthcare and energy — all of which have national and global impact.

Hinchey said the CASP marks a step forward for renewable energy.

“The research that will be done within these walls has the potential to reshape our energy future,” he said. “It is so important that our government makes substantial investment in laboratories like this. It is an unfortunate reality, however, that many in Washington have sought to eliminate investments in renewable energy research as well as the earmark process that enabled this funding to be allocated. I oppose that shortsighted approach and instead place my faith in the talented minds here at Binghamton University.”

Hinchey, who is retiring from Congress at the end of his term this year, said he is “honored” to have helped Binghamton University grow over the last two decades.

“This is a marvelous place that is getting stronger, bigger and more effective seemingly every day,” Hinchey said.

Lupardo called the opening celebration “good news” and noted how the ITC and its facilities are providing K-12 students and their teachers with another outlet to learn about science.

“There is so much good news coming out of Binghamton University, we can hardly keep up with it,” she said. “You see the construction going on. The community in general is starting to catch on that this is a place that is not only generating new ideas, but new jobs.”

Schumer brought up the name of Binghamton legend and “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling, who challenged Americans to “imagine something beyond the mundane.”

“The scientists, engineers, technicians, students, workers and administrators at Binghamton University and the Center for Autonomous Solar Power have accepted that challenge,” he said. “Into that middle ground, between light and shadow — into ‘the dimension of the imagination’ that Serling always talked about ― they will pour the full brightness of their intellect, invention and innovation. The citizens of Binghamton and far beyond will be better for it.”

The symposium will bring together leading researchers from academia, national labs and industry to focus on electronics packaging, a field that encompasses all components of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices, except for the integrated circuit or chip. Topics will include packaging trends, thermal management, 3-D packaging, sensors, electronics packaging for harsh environments, miniaturization and flexible/printed electronics.

The symposium will include a student poster session, a technology showcase spotlighting local industry, a networking reception and a dinner speaker.

“Consumers are getting pickier,” says Seungbae “S.B.” Park, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Binghamton University. “They say, ‘Hey, my friend dropped Product A more than a dozen times, and it’s still working fine. And I dropped mine once from not very high, and it’s broken. Mine must not be as good.’ Consumers are demanding manufacturers make devices more robust, while at the same time attractive, thin and light.”

Today, manufacturers don’t have to worry about longevity as much as they once did because people don’t expect their cell phones to last more than a couple of years. The biggest challenge is the ability to withstand the impact of being dropped.

The easiest, cheapest way to make a product sturdier is to add thickness and padding, but consumers don’t want fat phones. So manufacturers are looking more deeply into the mechanics of how a phone breaks when it hits the floor. The world’s second-largest cell-phone manufacturer, Samsung, turned to Park to analyze how its products fared.

“During a drop, there are many things happening in a fraction of a millisecond,” Park says. “The manufacturer needs to understand those very high-speed drop sequences.”

To slow down the action, Park and a team of students record drops with a high-speed camera that can take up to 300,000 frames per second. This allows the researchers to see precisely when parts such as chips and solder connections flex and break. They quantify the deformations and enter the data into a computer program so they can simulate drops from all possible positions and look at how all the potential drop energy is consumed — through the case breaking, sound generation, circuit-board flex, etc. They then try to come up with solutions that minimize damage of the critical components inside the case.

“Then we try to understand the best way to rearrange the chip location, model shape, battery position, battery size,” Park says. The battery alone offers numerous possibilities. “With the same amount of juice inside a battery, there are many different ways of making that chunk inside a cell phone — put it up, down, in the middle; chubby or thin and wide. There are many variations we can come up with.”

Finding the ideal balance informs design from the early stages of product development. Park realizes that “designers are designers,” artists who want to create a thing of beauty first and a thing of utility second. His work gives them and the engineers they work with a starting point.

Samsung brought its products to Binghamton several years ago when it joined the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center (IEEC), an organized research center on campus. The center’s engineering advice is second to none, Samsung Senior Engineer Soonwan Chung says.

“Binghamton University is known to have a lot of capability in faculty, facility and industry network,” Chung says. “Professor S.B. Park is so specialized in electronics reliability, and Samsung wanted to get his experience and consult. His research output helped us to make Samsung mobile phones robust in view of mechanical reliability.”

The Samsung-University relationship is a win for everyone, says James Pitarresi, chair of the mechanical engineering department. Samsung receives valuable insights while the University acquires greater visibility. And faculty members gain access to products that won’t be released to the public for a couple of years while providing their students with industry experience.

The relationship also is good for the public because it creates knowledge that is useful across industries. When Park’s group started looking at how cell phones react to drops, Pitarresi was amazed to find that there was hardly any published literature.

“There’s one of two reasons,” he says. “No. 1, it’s because we’re developing products so fast that research hasn’t caught up, and we all have our fingers crossed. Or No. 2, it’s because some companies have done some testing, but they keep it very proprietary. So we’ve been able to do some fundamental work here and publish it, which helps the entire industry.”

It also helps consumers because companies don’t have to spend money repeating investigations already conducted. So Park’s work helps industry make cell phones more reliable and less expensive.

Da Yu, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering who wrote his master’s thesis about the drop impact on reliability, says the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering’s business connections give him a leg up on his competition. As a student he has already worked on industry issues, sat in on conference calls and learned about real-world needs and methods.

Yu recently interviewed with Apple Inc., whose iPhone revolutionized cell phones, and was offered an internship. The area the company was most interested in was his work on drop impact and reliability.