Subject: Time: 11:11 AM OFFICE MEMO RE>FAB:AOI DATABASE TERMS AND DEFS Date: 3/22/96 All of you ---- please be very careful when you develop terms and definitions, and if you do need to develop a new term to communicate and describe a different/new condition please think it out, even consider using a standard dictionary or technical dictionary for an appropriate term. I'm writing this on behalf of and as a member of the IPC's Terms and Definitions committee. Those of you who are familiar with industry documents, know that industry is loaded with unsuitable jargon -- which may have been appropriate at the time, but the original requirements and definition has been changed over the years. And once a term gets in-grained in the industry it's difficult/impossible to change -- even when completely inappropriate. I agree with George Murray, let the appropriate technical personnel who have to live/use the terms and definitions have a major voice in the selection of new terms and definitions, and if at all possible communicate with you peers to see if they have discovered the same condition and have termed it. A few examples: Printed Boards / Printed Circuit Boards / Printed Wiring Boards -- How about the printed board industry itself, we're very inconsistent. Many of us still use and misapply the terms and definitions for printed boards, printed circuit and printed wiring. How many of us use "printed wiring" when the product being discussed is a "printed circuit". Measling -- this medical condition is mostly an easily identifiable (red colored) surface condition, and is not a variation in the color of light due to refractance of light due to a local separation of the cells in a human body between layers of human tissue at the cellular intersections. Most of us assume that the term for printed board (PB) measles was based on one of our predecessor's observing a similar pattern of visual condtions between an offspring having a case of red spots and a PB with whitish spots. Crazing -- before the PB industry was around, crazing was an array of surface cracks in materials. But not for PB's where it is actually a lack of bonding or separation in/along the fibers in the reinforcement material and may include fracturers (cracks?) of the resin between adjacent yarns. Silver Streaks / Railroad Tracks / Tunnel Voids -- and the list could go on and on. Pinholes / Blow Holes / Voids -- Now (to me) pinholes and blow holes are subsets of voids and they resemble the term that describes them. Mouse bites and "nibbles" indicate how the big of a mouthful the rodent took - which was a function of hungryness -- but wait! - there are no teeth marks, the edges are too smooth, perhaps it looks more like a leaf munching caterpillar bite. (;-) In conclusion, two final suggestions: 1) Document you term and definition with a illustration/photograph of the condition and supply it to the IPC's appropriate technical and terms and definitions committees, unless you can contain the use of the term to your facility. 2) -- please give the selection of terms and definitions some very serious though to determine if a term exists in another technology that resembles the condition. If you don't, all of us may eventually have to live with them, including our successors -- who may comment in meetings with their peers -- "who were the dummies who came up with this term for this condition". Ralph Hersey