well sounds like it's not yet been established whether failure is 
component, solder assembly or pwb.  Questions about financial 
responsibility are mute at this point.

Werner gave good advice/perspective in his comments.

dw


At 12:48 AM 4/7/2009, Karnwal, Pankaj wrote:
>Hi Dwight Mattix
>
>I am agree with you, :-)
>
>But first thing comes in my mind that, have the board is not repaired
>yet to identify the reason of failure ??
>
>We usually do the step analysis :
>1. Simulate the reported problem on our test Jig / end product.
>2. Reason detection of failure with out disturbing the board by
>physically ( Resoldering, tightening of connection ) and electronically
>( Reloading the firmware, upgrading )
>3. Once reason is detected/suspected, like failure of component,
>soldering issue, we do the repair activity, with preservation of data,
>like photo graph of affected area , X-ray images, copy the firmware.
>4. If repair activity is done successful, then confirmation of fault is
>important by the revert back the situation.
>5. One the reason or fault location is confirmed then root cause
>analysis of failure is starts...
>
>If component is defective then it can be send to the component Mfg. to
>FA ( Failure analysis ).
>
>You are seems to be lucky you found a permanent nature of fault, it can
>be easily addressed, in case of intermittent failure it becomes 10 times
>difficult  :-)
>
>BR
>Pankaj Karnwal
>Engineer QA
>
>Barco Electronics System Ltd.
>India
>
>Save Environment for future
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dwight Mattix [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 7:12 PM
>Subject: Re: PCB Failure analysis
>
>There's always two conversations going on in these matters. Be careful
>not to mix them too soon.
>
>One is technical/scientific. The other is about business/financial
>responsibility. Don't start the second conversation prematurely.
>
>First things first. Answer first question while keeping your technical
>hat firmly in place -- before going on to discuss second matter.
>
>Have you (or the customer) done a failure analysis yet?  Have you been
>able to isolate on the failure and categorize the failure mode(s)?
>
>The second matter is more difficult.
>
>Been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt. Weekly.  :-)
>
>Good luck.
>
>At 10:05 PM 4/5/2009, mp3 wrote:
> >Hello,
> >
> >One of our customers have comeback after 3 years asking for a failure
> >analysis report on a 10 layer industrial grade PCB. The PCB was
> >supplied 3 years back and has been functioning satisfactorilly for the
> >last 3 years. Now the customer has 3 PCBs which have failed and is
> >insisting it is a PCB related failure. The failure in all the
> >3 circuit boards are in the same area around a quadpack IC. We verified
>
> >the traveller card of the boards processed and found all aspects to be
> >compliant. The PCBs were being used in a jig for high reliability
> >harness checking. We feel it should be a component related issue rather
>
> >than a PCB related issue.
> >
> >Can you give us some inputs on the above which will help us in arriving
>
> >at the right conclusion.
> >
> >Rgds
> >
> >Pradeep
> >
> >-------------------------------
> >Micropack Ltd, Bangalore, India
> >
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