I have been involved in a number of supplier audits in Asia. If this is your first attempt at sourcing abroad you need to be aware of 2 key differences in dealing with Asia. The first is to expect questions on every design. Don't underestimate the manpower needed to manage the engineering questions. We have hundreds of designs built seamlessly at domestic shops but when sent to Asia they provide a significant list of questions (which need to be addressed before the fab starts). About 60-80% of the question were answered with "build to print", "build to supplied gerber" or "build to provided specification". The second difference materials. Asia has it's own menu of laminate suppliers and there is not always a 1:1 match in glass styles. Expect to see less of a "discount" for US materials. Also in Asia material is about 70% of the board cost. (US is generally 30%) You also need to understand what you need to look for in the audit. This depends on technology of the designs you plan on sending. Examples are: lines and spaces, via technology, required material, surface finish requirements, layer count. Building a PCB can be broken down into the following: printing and etching an image on cores, aligning and laminating the cores together, drilling and plating holes, image and etch the outer layers, and applying soldermask that doesn't open adjacent copper under my BGA's. Sounds simple, but there is a myriad of process and equipment in place to complete these high level tasks. This is where your list comes into play. Ours is significant and encompasses everything that needs to be looked at in every department. Again, This list was developed after numerous supplier audits and probably isn't something I can share on technet. Auditing a PCB shop is a challenging task domestically where everyone speaks the same language. Auditing in Asia is much more time consuming due to the language barrier. Many people speak some level of English but your ability to communicate with operators should not be underestimated. I would highly recommend you have someone on your team that speaks the language and can translate for you. You're going to waist a ton of time if you expect to be able to easily communicate without your own translator. Some shops are pretty good, other audits would be a complete waist of time without your own translator. -Al Onderick From: Dave Schaefer <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Date: 09/24/2009 09:41 AM Subject: Re: [TN] Abroad Printed Circuit Board supplier checklist Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]> Beyond the standard technical issues .... Be sure any dealings you have are through a solvent business in a country where litigation can be applied. Fabricators in countries who have no fear of financial loss via litigation factor this into their business models. I have seen losses in the millions of dollars caused by this scenario, even with well known major foreign suppliers. The cost of potential failure of your finished product at your customer should also be a consideration ... for most companies, the risk of loss of 1 major customer is not worth a few thousand dollars per year savings on bare PCB costs. Dave --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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 ----------------------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 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 -----------------------------------------------------