OK, I'll bite; for what it's worth, this is what I think:

All standards organizations sell their specifications; IPC at least makes
the test methods manual free for download. You can't even get the
test/sample requirements from UL without paying .. and you need those to
submit for mandatory flame testing.

You can get a lot of free but somewhat lame calculators and tools that
will provide a rough view to whatever it is you are trying to do ... but
if you really want to be accurate enough to design a high speed board,
then you need to *buy* a field solver... Same with other SI tools and
other thermal tools.

There isn't enough money floating around in the "industry" anymore; fewer
memberships; less conferences being attended; fewer books and abstracts
being bought - there isn't enough money to provide for some slush-bucket
of funds to do neat things and provide the membership with the outputs ...

If someone puts time into developing a tool with real useful
functionality, it is because the tool was needed and there weren't enough
people with the right skill sets to do something about it willing to
donate their time to developing it; so an individual picked up the torch
and ran with it; and if the tool falls under the marketing auspices of the
IPC and they agree to link to it, then the tool should (one assumes)
embody the standards and guidelines of the entity setting the
specifications...

I don't know enough about the workings of the IPC to know if they could be
more accommodating; but I suspect that like most organizations they are in
a fight for their existence and they don't have any extra money to design
test vehicles, run test vehicles, get the data and correlate it back to
the development model; hire programmers to write the code etc and so forth
(whatever effort needs to be undertaken to develop the tool and validate
the algorithms). If they were to do that, they would probably have to
charge for the tool too; then the cost is borne by those who use it, not
by the general membership who will not pay more dues to enable something
they don't use. The membership of the IPC is board fabricators;
assemblers; designers; equipment manufacturers; raw material suppliers;
vendors of assorted accessories and consumables ... so it's hard to
develop a particular tool for one segment and have the cost spread amongst
all ...

those are my thoughts; everything today costs something ... back to the
kids with their cell phones: they pay real money to download ring tones
and screen shots with a 90 day or so license then pouf! I choose to pay to
drink good water ...  it's just the way it is. You can settle for free and
second best, or pay someone something to acquire advanced intellectual
capital.

Valerie






Chris Ball <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: DesignerCouncil <[log in to unmask]>
05/11/2005 09:43 AM
Please respond to "(Designers Council Forum)"; Please respond to
chris.ball


        To:     [log in to unmask]
        cc:
        Subject:        Re: [DC] Propaganda Rant


Nick- I've learned whole new ECAD systems quicker than the time it took to
type that original rant. It's been my spare time-filler for a while (and I
still used some bad grammar). My intention was not to imply that PCB
Libraries is selling a poor-quality tool disguised as an IPC standard.
Sorry if that's how you took it.

I've only used the portion of the PCBLibraries tool purchased with
IPC-7351. Regarding  the pending IPC-2152 spec. and Thermalman software,
I've got their freeware calculator. But for now, the calculator results
don't match any formally released specification or standard.

So far no one has supplied an example of another standards org. doing what
IPC is doing with these companies. I really don't know one way the other
and would like to hear if it's happening elsewhere. Is this a general
trend
or an IPC thing?

-Chris



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