Hi Gordon,
Your concerns about these reliability statements in these standards are well
taken. See also the E-mail from Dave Hillman (Subject: Re[2]: IPC-SM-840). 
Those documents really do not have any business talking about reliability;
they do not address reliability, only quality and that only in terms which
may affect reliability not significantly in many cases. Of course, quality is
a requirement for assuring reliability, but assemblies perfect under J-001 or
IPC-SM-840 can be very unreliable because the basic design did not consider
the severity of the use conditions. 
The only documents that address reliability are IPC-D-279, 'Design Guidelines
for Reliable Surface Mount Technology Printed Board Assemblies', ANSI/IPC
J-STD-012, 'Implementation of Flip Chip and Chip Scale Technology', and
ANSI/IPC J-STD-013, 'Implementation of Ball Grid Array and Other High Density
Technology' for their specific technologies, and IPC-SM-785, 'Guidelines for
Accelerated Reliability Testing of Surface Mount Solder Attachments' for the
testing aspects. 
Because of the varying nature of the use conditions, there can not be a
reliability standard, only guidelines that allow the designer to meet stated
reliability goals.

Werner Engelmaier
Engelmaier Associates, Inc.
Electronic Packaging, Interconnection and Reliability Consulting
23 Gunther Street
Mendham, NJ  07945  USA
Phone & Fax: 201-543-2747
E-mail: [log in to unmask]  

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