Jack,
The IPC-2222 says that large areas "may" be broken up.
This standard's latest release is February, 1999 so it's a bit outdated.
Years ago we used to do things like that to reduce file sizes but this is
unnecessary today.
A solid plane is better but be sure to balance out the copper on all layers
to guard against warpage. 
I think the warpage issue is where the old IPC-2222 standard was going with
the cross hatching idea.
Ken

_____________________________________
Kenneth J. Wood
Saturn PCB Design, Inc.              
[log in to unmask]
www.saturnpcb.com



-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jack Olson
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 7:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Hashing-Out Hatching

Greetings,

I was just reading through the latest draft of IPC-2222,
and stumbled into the advice in section 10 regarding
"large conductive areas", where we are advised to
use some kind of etched pattern (cross-hatching)
for any area larger than a 25mm diameter circle.

I have done this exactly once in the last 22 years,
does anyone else do this?

Has anyone ever experienced a problem by NOT doing
this? (not counting soldermask over HASL)

Jack

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