Mike, We concur that the requirements of J-STD-001 are unequivocal. We understand that you're responding to Guy's comment. Our concern is whether or not the stated solderability requirements of J-STD-001 are realistic. You have to be scratching your head about that too, given that you SHALL develop boat loads of conformance cert for a non-existant problem, when it sure would be nice to spend that time and money fixing what otherwise would be a more pressing problem, eh? Your quote about the J-STD-002A, Para 1.7 begs the question: "OK, float test of BGA is inappropriate. What do you suggest as an alternative test of the solderability of BGA solder balls?" [Just to keep this on the straight and narrow, the Joint Soldering Technology Committee suggests: "Although there is no BGA solderability test defined in J-STD-002A, the Test S can be used to assess solderability on BGA packages."] There don't we all feel better, now? Dave Fish ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Sewell To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 7:39 AM Subject: Re: [TN] J-STD-002 and -003 solderability testing... David/Guy, Just trying to make an solid argument for performing/not performing the testing or certing to it on C of Cs. But to build to j-std-001... "shall" is invoked by the standard. Para 1.4 states "The word shall is used throughout this document whenever a requirement is intended to express a provision that is binding" HDBK-001(B) goes on to stress the importance of solderabilty - going so far as to say that "none of the variables in soldering is as important as solderability" For BGAs and other parts that do not lend themselves to solderability testing, -002A 1.7 "In cases where the stated test parameters are inappropriate or insufficient, alternate parameters may be agreed upon between vendor and user." FWIW - We solder with mostly OA, some RMA - mixed technology and find little to no problems with solderability. Joints are 100% visually inspected under magnification.