To: Distribution
From: R. Gobin, C. Young, B. Craig
Re: Parlex Site Visit and Actions
Date: January 21, 2005
We visited Parlex to discuss the results of the Teledyne testing performed earlier this week that clearly indicated Parlex pitch adapters produced after April of 2004 were the sole cause of the massive failures at Teledyne.
After presenting these results to Richard List , Phong Ho and Ferdinand Fong we discussed the implications
of our findings, i.e. that Parlex pitch adapters
produced in April of 2004 (
We
talked over the effects of the Cu material from Dupont
(Dupont AP8525R roll annealed .5 oz
copper in 36" X 24" sheets (copper/kapton/copper)Each
lot has lit# for traceability. IPC spec designation: IPC-4204/11-E1E200/0-CU-W7-HS/HS.
Copper Foil: IPC-4562) and learned that they were well aware of the
increased performance of flex circuits aligned with the grain of the rolled Cu
material but only tended to use it in that orientation only in dynamic
applications when the circuits underwent a considerable number of cycles. Otherwise it is more economical to
manufacture with the grain perpendicular to the traces on the pitch adapter as
it increases the number of parts that can be produced per piece of raw
material. It did not appear credible
that there were any changes in the raw material although Parlex
will produce certifications as part of their documentation effort as called out
in action item 1 below.
We focused on a discussion of other changes in the process,
beyond the possibility of another Ni plater (and type
of Ni deposition). After walking
through the process, step by step, we found that one significant change was
made in the basic procedure between the Lots. In the
We found no evidence of changes in process at Parlex itself and did find that they were very willing to cooperate with resolving the problem. We also found that that their documentation, particularly for parts produced before the summer of ’04, appeared inadequate. The following action items were agreed to
1) Determine the details of the successful
April ’04 recipe: Parlex to examine their records
and determine the actual process recipe for the
2) Measure the thickness of the plated material
on a sample from all lots: SLAC to
supply 3 pitch adapters to Parlex, one each of
3) Recreate the plating recipe from April and contrast it with the later recipe: Parlex to take existing ½ oz material and perform the processing steps through imaging on a number of parts. At this point, several Ni/Au coating sequences to be performed, duplicating the April recipe and the recipes from Fall of ’04 and, as possible, some reasonable variations on these. These parts, without final gold overcoat, will be tested on the SLAC 1mm bending fixture. Test target date is Wednesday January 26 at SLAC. Coating steps at Coatex and ExpressTech to be witnessed by a SLAC representative. Due date: Wednesday January 26th. Actionee: Phong Ho, Ferdinand Fong for Parlex, Richard Gobin, Charlie Young, Bill Craig for SLAC.
4) Prepare for resumption in production as early as Wednesday January 26th: Assuming success once the plating recipe is resurrected the goal would be to immediately resume production with full process documentation on all steps, including grain orientation and all plating steps at Parlex’s subcontractors. A remaining issue on dimensional tolerance must be resolved by transferring Charlie Young’s metrology into adjustments in the artwork and the numerical controlled drilling machine program. Raw material is available now at Parlex for another project. One half of this existing stock will be reserved for use on the pitch adapters, this is sufficient for several hundred pitch adapters. Due Date: Wednesday January 26th. Actionee: Richard List to reserve material, Ferdinand Fong to work with Charlie Young to ensure the correct changes are made to artwork and program. Phong Ho to document process and ensure no changes in plating or process without written permission from SLAC.
After these actions are complete and a decision made to resume normal production SLAC QA to be informed in advance of all key steps in the production of the next lot and will be afforded the opportunity to be present throughout. Richard Gobin will obtain an upper and lower limit on the Ni thickness spec and pass this along to Parlex. SLAC will require continuing thickness measurements from each lot with the details of number and location of measurements to be determined after the analysis of the data from action item 2 above.