The most widely used electronics assembly standard in the world is about to get an update. The industry association IPC, which represents printed circuit board and electronics manufacturing service companies, will be releasing an addendum to its popular standard, IPC-A-610D, Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies. The addendum, which will be called IPC-A-610DC, Telecommunications Applications Electronic Hardware Addendum, is designed to provide supplemental IPC-A-610D criteria to ensure that electrical and electronic assemblies comply with the physical design and manufacturing requirements established by Telcordia GR-78, Generic Requirements for the Physical Design and Manufacture of Telecommunications Products and Equipment.
The need for the information provided by the addendum has increased as more telecommunications equipment manufacturers continue to outsource and use contract manufacturers, or CMs, says Darrin Dodson of Alcatel-Lucent and chair of the committee that developed the addendum. “At one time everyone had their own product acceptability standards. But in order to facilitate the CM model, it makes sense for there to be one standard out there that everybody marches to. That way, you don’t have to retrain CMs to various companies’ standards every time you move products.”
“The GR-78 standard has been used for many years to manufacturer products that will connect to telephone lines. This was particularly important when there were captive manufacturers for the telecom industy,” says Jack Crawford, director of certification and assembly technology for IPC. “Now that product owners are using a broader range of assembly companies that are already using IPC-A-610 for many of their customers, it makes sense to have a standard that will supplement the requirements for telecoms so they don’t need separate training programs for GR-78 and IPC-A-610.”
The addendum will also help companies that have gone through mergers.
“For us” says Dodson, “it makes even more sense, because Alcatel merged with Lucent, so we have two huge companies that had their own standards. This will give us one document.”
The addendum will expand on the standard’s criteria by covering enclosures such as cabinets and racks and their finishes. It will also provide requirements for fiber optics connectors that are not already in IPC-A-610D.
Translated into 18 languages, IPC-A-610D is the most widely used standard in the world for the acceptance of print circuit assemblies. IPC also offers a training and certification program, and plans on providing supplemental training for the addendum as well.
The addendum is going to ballot in October and is expected to be published in early 2009.
Even though work on the addendum is nearly complete, IPC welcomes additional participation in the committee, which will soon begin work on the next version of IPC-A-610. Anyone interested in joining the committee can contact Jack Crawford at jackcrawford@ipc.org for
more information.