Hi Susan, Unless there is an excursion past Tg, there is no loading condition that would create the stresses necessary to cause either barrel cracking or inner-layer separation. HASL certainly would do that, but on ENiG boards there is no reason for such a temperature excursion. So you should not see any barrel cracking or inner-layer separation prior to Thermal Stress testing even on very low-quality PCBs. If you do, they saw some thermal excursion somewhere after wet processing. Regards, Werner Engelmaier --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------