MAE Students Visit Vishay's Micro-Measurement Group in Wendell, NC
March 28, 2004

Students in MAE 316-01 and MAE 206-03 visited Vishay Micro-Measurement Group in Wendell, NC on Friday afternoon. Vishay is a Fortune 1,000 Company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It is one of the world's largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductors (diodes, rectifiers, transistors, optoelectronics, and selected integrated circuits) and passive electronic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors, and transducers). Vishay has plants in sixteen countries employing over 25,000 people.

Vishay products are used in electronic devices and equipment such as cell phones, video systems, televisions, household appliances, scales, medical and industrial equipment, and subsystems in automobiles, airplanes, and spacecraft. It is interesting to note that the company's growth rate has been 15% annually over the last 15 years

This is primarily due to its experienced and responsible management and employee work force and highly ethical standards which have enabled Vishay to maintain its competitive edge during both upturns and downturns in the global electronics industry.

During this visit, Tom Kieffer, President, Darryl Peterson, Senior applications Engineer, Kevin Swiger, Applications Engineer, Tom Rummage, Applications Engineer, Donielle Dockery, Photo Stress Product Manager, and Ken Brandt, President of Measurement Dynamics were introduced to our students. 

Mr. Kieffer enlightened us with his remarks on the engineering achievements in the field of Stress/Strain Analysis; from the time engineers used slide rule until the present where modern devices are used for micro measurements.  His words of encouragement for the future of engineering and his vision regarding manufacturing were overwhelmingly received by our students.

Mr. Peterson, an Alumni of the MAE Department at NCSU, talked more in depth and took us through the time when the company was founded by the late J.E. (Jim) Starr in 1962 and the time when the company later moved to Wendell NC in 1979.   This was the most pleasant story on a historical presentation and achievements in the field of engineering measurement.

Mr. Dockery introduced us to Photo Stress Full-field Optical Measuring, which was invented by Dr. Felix Zandman who is the present CEO of Vishay .  This process has extensive applications in components made of metals, composite, concrete, biomedical, and rubber.  Students were pleased to note how easy it is to identify overstress and under-stress areas, and they also observed the stress distribution under various load modes. Students could easily relate the complex formulas in their textbook with some simple graphical presentation of the formula shown on the video.  Mr. Dockery also talked about how closely Photo Stress technique works with the Finite Element Analysis, which incidentally, both of our classes have had recent computer assignments in FEA using ANSYS software at NCSU.


Mr. Swiger and Mr. Peterson conducted the tour of the manufacturing side and explained the cycle of manufacturing for different products from the conception of design to quality manufacturing and delivery to customers.  The company operates with defect free methodology. 

The engineers whose names are mentioned above along with Mr. Dave Lineback and Mr. Howard Howland, are a wealth of knowledge who should frequently be invited to our classes in MAE 206, MAE 314, and MAE 316 to share their experience with our students. Each talk by these erudite individuals can simply add a flavor that can truly be appreciated by each one of our students. 

We also learned that Mr. Ken Brandt, who is engaged in Stress Analysis, Transducers, Data Acquisition, Lasers, and Testing Services, will be happy to visit our labs and talk about the new state of the art technology and equipments which have replaced the traditional measuring equipment.

We are grateful to the staff and management team at Vishay and especially to Mr. Darryl Peterson who so kindly coordinated this educational trip.