I would appreciate hearing from any board manufacturers concerning 
the inclusion or exclusion of nonfunctional lands from internal planes 
or signal layers.  IPC-D-275 is vague on this (para 5.3.2.5) by 
stating "should be included" rather than "shall".  I've always 
included unused pads on internal layers because I was told it aided 
in the plating and support of the hole.  I was recently asked by a 
vendor to replace our traditional donuts on the plane layers to a 
complete void (my guess was it would give them an additional .010 
radius to work with). This precipitated a conversation about wether 
we need unused pads on internal signal layers as well.  How do you 
feel about this?

                                    Tom Hybiske
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