Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1509257
OCTOBER 2023 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 35 ers will say that this is what you do. I've seen design guidelines and app notes that literally say to remove the non-functional pads and run the traced formulas away from the drilled hole. But app notes are not reliable. Matties: It sounds like we might just be in a rut because it works the way we've always done it. There's often no one challenging the status quo or coming back like Summit and saying, "Hold it, you need to look at this differently." What seems to happen in our industry is that if we built one board and it worked once, we have a process. Somebody once gave me a great e x p l a n a t i o n : S o m e - times you have to cross Death Valley, and as long as you get there, the journey was successful. But nobody considers how our part comes out exactly right. You have to take these things into consid- eration. How do we do it? We have collaboration up front: If we put this into the design, or change these requirements, is that a good functional, reliable product? We all agree to it up front. We will have higher yields and greater success when we finish the product and get it into the field. Matties: IPC has the standards. What can IPC do beyond just providing standards to help designers better understand this? at's the challenge that we face within the standards community. is is where you all do a great job of socializing these things and mak- ing people aware that there are rules. Designers need to understand that there are reasons that we have rules, and if you break the rules, here's what happens. When we write in IPC-A-600, for instance, that this is the minimum dielec- tric, this is how you measure, this is accep- tance, and this is non-conforming, there's a reason. When we socialize this stuff and share that the yield went from 25% to 88%, then that rule starts to have some weight and impact. You know, if you've suffered with poor yields and gone through multiple suppliers and you still run into the same things, maybe it's not the supplier. Matties: That's an interesting perspective. We've posted some blogs on our website to make the customers aware of these things: is rule is allowed, and here's what happens when we go outside the rule. Here's the fallout and here is the reward if you follow the rules. But people read the rules differently. I had a phone call yesterday from a customer asking if we had changed the rules. No, we clarified a rule because there was confusion about what was right. It was a clarification of what existed. It's hard for people to understand, so we blog about this on our website to help socialize this incident. By the way, IPC-6012F is coming out soon, with many changes that make it easier for us to clarify a lot of things and make them easier to understand. For example, with cavity boards, there were no documents on edge plating. Is it acceptable or not? Now, in IPC-6012F, we have rules for different types of cavities. You have to design certain things a certain way to make cavities successful. But there's no perfect situation; if you do a cavity board, there's usu- ally bleed-out, and you have to accept bleed- out. Matties: This type of thing needs to be com- municated to the industry. Exactly. When I was first blogging on LinkedIn, What seems to happen in our industry is that if we built one board and it worked once, we have a process.