Franklin, My experience is that a 0.006" drill is way past most shop's experience unless they specialize in packaging substrates. Think of how thin the shank is when you cut back the cutting surfaces! Very very fragile drill. Very very difficult to remove much material out the flutes while drilling. And then, very very difficult to plate that hole. I don't know how you find yourself needing a 0.006" through hole; when we need a 0.006" hole we design it as a blind via. It would normally be a laser formed blind if the target depth isn't too deep; if it needs to go fairly deep into the board, then we design that section as a sublamination. It costs to do it that way - but it works and that way the holes get plated reliably. The other benefit of making the section as a sublam is that you can fill the blind holes with resin then cap and plate them - making for a very accommodating via-in-pad design. Valerie Franklin D Asbell <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]> 10/05/2005 03:03 PM Please respond to TechNet E-Mail Forum; Please respond to Franklin D Asbell To: [log in to unmask] cc: Subject: Re: [TN] New Topic A good question and I am not suggesting we divulge trade secrets but for example, we are currently producing solder mask dams down to 1 mil with .5 clearance. This not only involves controlling the solder mask exposure and developing precisely but also drill/image registration as these are for DUT pads of 3 mils. This is where technology is taking us today. Now continuing this example, I need to know how to drill a 6 mil via-in-pad (as features prevent laser drill as an option) and our supplier say's the best they can get us to is 8 mils. Would you share some knowledge for other knowledge? How many assembler and end user participants in TechNet can answer the 6 mil drill question? And for those of you taking notes, these are hypotheticals (except we can indeed provide 1 mil solder mask dams). I don't ask very many fabrication questions on TechNet anymore as I rarely receive a response. Is this because they don't know? Are the questions beyond the capabilities of the majority of TechNet? Or the right people are not seeing the question? I believe the latter. Just more things to ponder... Franklin -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jim Henderson Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 12:29 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] New Topic With the auction of a United States PCB fab shop happening on a weekly basis, I wonder how much information a shop is willing to share can be attributed to the lack of questions or answers for that matter we are seeing here. (Trade secrets stuff) Jim Henderson Colonial Circuits, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Whittaker, Dewey (AZ75) Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 12:05 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] New Topic There have been some real whoppers told already on this forum. I don't know if we want to encourage the participation of additional fabricators. Dewey -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Franklin Asbell Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 9:00 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] New Topic How can we increase the participation of pcb fabricators to the TechNet forum? Franklin --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a 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/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------