Does there remain any reason to have thermal reliefs on vias
(ie: drilled hole size less than 0.016" diameter) ?

Process improvements at our major suppliers have greatly reduced
the incidence of "pink ring", and generally improved the quality
of the adhesion between internal copper layers and the epoxy
laminate.

I would appreciate comments on any potential small hole
reliability issues with eliminating thermal reliefs on:

  - standard vias (DHS < 0.015" diameter).

  - "probe/test point" vias which are required to be solder-
    filled where there are no/few adjacent power/ground plane
    clearances.

Thanks,
Karl Sauter
Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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