Hi, Mark,
You have my sympathies. I have worked for a Company that has no great
expertise in the various board materials available and even less about how,
when, where and why they should be used - they're too "young" to have this
knowledge and experience. They were quite happy to just let a fab house
choose the materials to make any board, but didn't insist on it, or put the
fab house in the position you're being put in. 'Naive' is the word I would
use.
Since I joined the company, I fought real hard to get the designers to
understand that their responsibilities lie beyond mere circuit design and
component selection; that they need to know and understand more about the
"physical" side of designing as well. But the organisational structure,
lack of experience and working culture worked against people taking on more
than they consider necessary, and thus far they hadn't seen the necessity
to know more - in fact I scared the hell out of them by suggesting that
they would just have to do some reading and learn for themselves, not leave
it to others.
You're probably in the same position from the other side of the fence - you
have a customer that doesn't know enough themselves, so are trying to place
all the responsibility on your shoulders without realising the full import
what it is they're asking of you. I would be very careful indeed about
taking on such a customer, if they're being so adamant but are not prepared
to pay for their demands. I would put a lot of very serious caveats into
whatever your response to them is. I know work is harder to come by at the
moment, but you won't be doing yourselves any favours by taking this on -
the risks of the unknowns (if they're not fully involving you in the design
requirements) sound far too high. If your customer has no means of properly
investigating failures and are looking for a scapegoat other than
themselves for anything that goes wrong, then you're heading for an aweful
lot of grief.
All the best.
Peter
Mark Mazzoli <[log in to unmask]> 07/01/2003 05:35 AM
Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]>
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cc: (bcc: DUNCAN Peter/Asst Prin Engr/ST Aero/ST Group)
Subject: [TN] Laminate requirements - Who is responsible for choosing?
I have a question for designers, OEM's and Fab houses regarding material
choices. A customer of ours who builds high-end burn in boards has
demanded that we choose and stand behind the laminate used for their
boards. They've experienced field failures (possibly from CAF or perhaps
sulfur in the Polyimide system, though neither has been confirmed) and then
began specifying other material types that proved even more troublesome.
Instead of looking at obvious design characteristics that may be leading to
these failures (like hole to internal trace distance) they've elected to
make us, the fabricator, responsible for choosing the materials and
ultimately being responsible for their long-term effectiveness in the
field. As well, they're not willing to pay for any increases a new
material may cost.
I've been in this business for 23 years and have assisted many customers in
choosing materials. Assisted is the key word here. No customer up to this
point has demanded that I make the laminate choice for them and eat
whatever costs are associated with it as well as stand behind the product
should it fail in the field (other than for workmanship reasons for which
we had control). Most PCB users want control of the materials they choose.
They order their boards on whatever materials they feel will best suit
their needs. They're the experts at whatever products they build, not us.
I know this business is getting tougher by the moment, but seriously, are
other end users approaching PCB fab houses with a similar scenario? I have
big concerns about making the final choice of laminates. Not only do we
not know the exact operating conditions of his product but we have no
control over the design. So even if we see design areas where field
failures can occur, we can't make changes.
Where does this end? Are fab houses now supposed to become expert in all
electronic technologies we build PCB's for? Is it smart for the end user
to allow a fab house to choose the material?
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