Hi TechNet:

Thanks, Werner and Jean-Paul for your insightful comments.

When you look at this problem from the contract manufacturer's
perspective, (and if you keep track of market research data,
they are the fastest growing segment of the industry), it is
clear that they cannot afford ambiguity/indirection. The 
entrenched positions and the competitive advantage game must 
be phased out quite rapidly. I feel that without the support 
of commonly accepted ground rules, sooner or later, the market 
will be flooded with high "quality" products that maybe really 
expensive in relation to their designed lifecycles. Either that,
or the contract manufacturers will be forced to restrict themselves
to companies that adopt similar reliability criteria. In the
process, competition and other factors could drive down their
already low profit margins. True, they do not constitute the 
majority at IPC standards meetings, but the largest impact
of such guidelines is on them. It is democracy, I suppose.

It is interesting that you bring up Motorola's BGA studies.
With fine-pitch BGAs (aka chip scale packages,...) taking off
in some snazzy applications, it is difficult to predict
the future. Flip-chip-on-board may not be too far off too.
Reliability & rework nightmares galore!!! I think the 
Open-Standards war, now predominant in software, will 
spillover soon to manufacturing too.

Regards,

Vijay Sankaran
Research Associate
Center for Integrated Electronics and Electronics Manufacturing 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY 12180
Ph: (518) 276-2721
Fax:(518) 276-2990

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