Points well made, Nigel, particularly in consideration of the apparent 
intellectual capacity of ranking Microsoft personnel: I have no doubt 
that the selected Chinese manufacturing entity (my assumption, as I've 
never even seen one of the units myself) was "carefully" chosen to 
fulfill the "target objectives" set forth by corporate management.

The funniest thing about this particular case (again, I might be wrong 
here) is the fact that lead-free was chosen to produce the device well 
before EU import requirements were put into effect.  So, one could 
assume that a hamstrung and crunched design department probably missed 
the thermomechanical mark for the application; and created a product 
which would have performed satisfactorily if it had not been constructed 
with what amounts to substandard solder...

Case closed?



--- Previous Message in This Thread ---
Subject: Re:[LF] Fodder for Discussion?
From: Nigel Burtt <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 2:20:55 AM

> I was going to say much the same thing as Jean-Paul (only less eloquently) 
> having read the first few posts There are two obvious possible causes here:
> 
> (1) the use of lead-free solder
> (2) poor design for reliability, failing to account for thermo-mechanical aspects
> 
> Given this is a first mass-produced product for Microsoft (a computer software 
> company with no track-record in similar hardware on the world market) I know 
> which one I would be more inclined to point the finger at. The other is 
> probably a contributing factor, at least in as far as a full and proper 
> understanding of its performance and the manufacturing process controls 
> necessary to guarantee the required level of performance for the design.
> 
> Nigel Burtt
> Enjaybee Associates
> www.nigelburtt.co.uk
> 
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