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96 The PCB Magazine • July 2017 by Derrik Snider IMDS DATA LLC Suppliers of electronics parts and assemblies to the auto industry are finding IPC's voluntary material data reporting system (IPC-1752A) in- sufficient for automotive customers. The auto industry has adopted the International Material Data System (IMDS), which has different report- ing requirements than IPC. IMDS and IPC-1752A are different tools for reporting materials data, created by sepa- rate industries for different purposes. Suppliers of electronic parts and assemblies that will be part of a car must register their materials data in the IMDS database and obtain an IMDS number that will be required on a PPAP. Low- er-tier suppliers are required by many high- er-tier customers to provide the material data that IMDS requires as a condition of PPAP ap- proval. If a PCB fabricator has comprehensive and complete data describing all material substanc- es in an assembly (in IPC or an equivalent for- mat), it can provide its automotive customer with sufficient data to comply with IMDS reg- istration. For example, Figure 1A shows a por- tion of a hypothetical IPC material composition declaration (MCD) for two items on a supplier's BOM. Figure 1B illustrates how the same data on the two items would appear as part of an IMDS report. The arrows show how the IPC data would translate to the IMDS format. Because the IPC data in Figure 1a is suffi- cient for IMDS, entering the data in the IMDS system would be relatively straightforward. Note that in Figure 1b the components would have to be correctly placed on the IMDS Tree Level for the part, and that material substance weights would have to be converted to percent- ages, a tedious and time-consuming task for many components. A PCB fabricator supplying an automotive customer can fulfill their data reporting require- ment in one of two ways: 1. Send complete data to the customer in IPC or equivalent format, or 2. Enter the data directly into the IMDS database Automotive Suppliers Must Manage Data for IMDS Compliance ARTICLE