Greetings, Has there been any studies published, or stories told, about the ability of Micro vias to withstand mechanical shear forces in various materials. For example, consider a 3 mil diameter laser via, thru 2 mil of Speedboard dielectric material, with .6 to .9 mil of copper plating. The via is in the pad of a gold plated finger edge connector. For a visual picture, imagine the application is a Game Card for Game Boy, and you are expecting some physical stress with repeated insertion and extraction. Would RCC foil be better than the Speedboard, or would you have to use 106 glass prepreg? Thermont? Another application would be in a very small 20+ pin multi row SMT connector. The connector is 'trapped' by the housing, but insertion and extraction forces are still transmitted to the board, through the connector solder joint. Imagine some Laser vias in those connector pads. George Franck who hopes he isn't someplace where no one has gone before. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------