WITH every Apex comes an outpouring of new standards, and this year's conference was no exception. As the demands of PCBs for automotive applications assert themselves as a unique class, the industry standards are being adapted in sync. To that end, IPC-6012, the longstanding bare board qualification spec, now has an automotive supplement, reflecting the "superclass" of reliability for that sector above and beyond Class 2. Given that auto electronics are shrinking, the IPC task group has eliminated visual inspection in favor of AOI on all layers and recommends use of AVI (automated visual inspection) of the finished PCB. The cleanliness testing requirement has also been rewritten. The automotive addendum includes a recommendation of tests to be used in Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) documentation.
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