Mark - As hard as this is in this economy I strongly recommend that you tell the customer to either take responsibility for their design or to take it elsewhere. There are too many factors involved in the selection of laminate that you as a fabricator can not control for you to accept responsibility for the function of the boards. As a designer, I have worked hard to develop an understanding of how to select laminate to function in the system I am designing. I may ask a fabricator to *HELP* with selecting a laminate that meets my design criteria and fits with their process; but I would never *DEMAND* that they take responsibility for *MY* design. There are several very good presentations at the UP Media Design Conferences and/or supported by the IPC that cover everything from basic laminate structure to advanced laminates for high-speed design. You should recommend that the customer look in to some of these courses before going forward with this design. Best of Luck, Jeffrey A McGlaughlin C.I.D. Senior Designer Battelle Memorial Institute Columbus Ohio [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Mark Mazzoli [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 4:35 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Laminate requirements - Who is responsible for choosing? I have a question for designers, OEM's and Fab houses regarding material choices. A customer of ours who builds high-end burn in boards has demanded that we choose and stand behind the laminate used for their boards. They've experienced field failures (possibly from CAF or perhaps sulfur in the Polyimide system, though neither has been confirmed) and then began specifying other material types that proved even more troublesome. Instead of looking at obvious design characteristics that may be leading to these failures (like hole to internal trace distance) they've elected to make us, the fabricator, responsible for choosing the materials and ultimately being responsible for their long-term effectiveness in the field. As well, they're not willing to pay for any increases a new material may cost. I've been in this business for 23 years and have assisted many customers in choosing materials. Assisted is the key word here. No customer up to this point has demanded that I make the laminate choice for them and eat whatever costs are associated with it as well as stand behind the product should it fail in the field (other than for workmanship reasons for which we had control). Most PCB users want control of the materials they choose. They order their boards on whatever materials they feel will best suit their needs. They're the experts at whatever products they build, not us. I know this business is getting tougher by the moment, but seriously, are other end users approaching PCB fab houses with a similar scenario? I have big concerns about making the final choice of laminates. Not only do we not know the exact operating conditions of his product but we have no control over the design. So even if we see design areas where field failures can occur, we can't make changes. Where does this end? Are fab houses now supposed to become expert in all electronic technologies we build PCB's for? Is it smart for the end user to allow a fab house to choose the material? --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e 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 or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) 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 -----------------------------------------------------