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JULY 2018 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 89 published as of the time of this writing, will contain a non-exhaustive list of substances and their CAS numbers as a convenient refer- ence to this ever-growing list of substances. Useful information about the standard and its implementation and advantages may be found on the IPC web page, Data Exchange Stan- dards. Additional advantages of FMD have been published, for example, by companies offering such services, companies needing FMDs from their suppliers, industry conferences, and arti- cles in electronics journals [1,2]. The story contin- ues and the message remains clear: Companies need a way to stay ahead of the growing list of new substances they are required to manage. FMDs are the best way to do so. Requirements Part One: The Schema is the Roadbed In the next sections, we list and explain the value of functional requirements that a good, basic FMD reporting tool should have. At the most basic level, the tool by its nature will be software, and to be used for reporting up the supply chain the XML declaration file must conform to the IPC standard itself. In recent years, the chairs and participants in the IPC 2-18b Materials Declaration Task Group have graciously offered their time and expertise to help review, on a blind submission basis, XML files including Class D FMDs. Using software tools that are available for checking confor- mance to the schema as specified in the stan- dard, as well as a review by IPC 2-18b partic- ipants, those software solution providers that have been verified in this review process and found to conform to the schema in their test files are listed by IPC. As the relatively recent history of the IPC review process shows in Table 1, a handful of solution providers have supported and continue to support Class D FMDs, as well as the other reporting classes A and C (not shown). It may be concluded that there are enough competent software solution providers to offer a choice, yet not be overwhelming for companies just embarking on the journey to generate FMDs. Specific company names can be found on the IPC web site as cited above. Some of the basic requirements for confor- mance to the standard schema include the following: • All mandatory data elements (tags) are present, which must be completed when entering data into the tool, if not already present from some prior data entry or load. These elements include data like supplier and customer IDs and part numbers, and homogenous materials in the product broken down by substances and their weights. • Ability to enter the most useful optional data elements as desired, or as requested by the customer. For example, substance weight is mandatory, but concentration is optional. • Ability to incorporate a legal statement, either with a standard boilerplate or by entering a custom statement. • Tags identifying the data as Class D (FMD) based on substance reporting at the homo- geneous material level; class C substance category reporting at the product level; or Class A query/reply format (true/false compliance statements). • Further details including a complete list of mandatory and optional data may be found in the IPC-1752A standard. Requirements Part Two: Lanes of Chemical Data Since FMD is all about the chemical data, and suppliers in the electronics industry may not have extensive chemical expertise, this set of functionality is critical to generating Class D XMLs as correct and error-free as possi- ble. Clearly, to even begin generating FMDs Table 1: IPC Validated FMD Tool Providers.