Ross,

I share your's and other designer concerns, on this subject. The good news is
that there is a major cooperave effort underway to help resolve some of these
concerns. The IPC calls it DTS '96 for Data transfer '96. It is part of an
ITRI effort which is funded by many sources, inlcuding the government and
private industry. All the pieces of the puzzle are participating, inclding
EDA vendors, assemblers, fabricators, and other standards bodies, to name a
few. Granted, not all vendors and suppliers are there, but the major ones are
certainly represented.

Will this effort solve the problem next week? No, but at least there is a
healthy start.

A detailed update was presented by the group's chairman, Harry Parkinson
(Digital Equipment), at IPC Tech works, in Naples Florida, two weeks ago. A
brief overview was also presented at the PCB Design Conference, in Danvers,
Ma last week.

As the group moves forward, updates will be released for industry comment.

Regards,

Gary Ferrari
Executive Director 
IPC Designers Council


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