Sponsor Sought for Innovation to Overcome Electrical Testing Limitation

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A sponsor is sought to develop a trend software system (TSS) that works around the limitation of electrical testers not being able to test for the aspect of weakness in solder joints. TSS would report this suspicion of weakness.

As integration with the weakness of solder joints, TSS would report another possibility, a suspicion of a bad run of a component. Bad runs of components are referred to as supply problems.

A sponsor to develop TSS is sought to arrive at these two industry benefits. The sponsor of TSS would be a PCB manufacturer, who could perform to the following specs:

• The boards would be intended to be installed in high-performance U.S. military aircraft
• The boards would function to operate pilots’ cockpit instruments
• TSS would lessen future RETOKs (ReTest OKs) after actual flight operations
• The TSS process uses software which works around the factor of electrical testers not being able to test for solder-joint weakness only
• Over the Internet, TSS-member-manufacturing sites would independently and automatically interchange information with a central site on the replacement of capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc., during final electrical testing
• Operations with the central site would concern software results reflecting the replacements of capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc., during local final electrical testing to reflect on the possible unreliability of solder joints
• Replacement of capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc., during final electrical testing should meet the Standard of ISO 9001 as an estimate of reliability
• Related to the ISO 9001 Standard, feedback over time on replacements of capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc., during local final electrical testing, would reflect in two ways, first on meeting the Standard, the reliability of solder joints; and second, on a significant decrease in RETOKs
• In this first benefit, because TSS thus works around the limitations of electrical testing for a decrease in RETOKs, warnings between pilots of unreliability of cockpit instrumentation then would no longer need to be a reality, to the present extent.
• For the other benefit, the supply problem, the TSS would know, from these counts of components, the specific capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc., that had been replaced
• TSS would apply this already-taken data of specifically-identified replaced components, to integrate another possibility, a suspicion of a bad run of a component
• TSS would notify sites, knowing the identification and the whereabouts of components, by bin number, in each site’s bins, so that TSS would point out each suspicion of a bad-component run
• On being notified of suspected bad-component runs, each site would take local action to investigate and remove the bad components from bins, to reduce local testing problems
• Overall, in weakness-and-Supply replies, TSS would tell manufacturers of ISO 9001’s Standards, as well as TSS’s suspected Supply Problems
• The TSS replies would come at the end of local final electrical testing
• The two TSS replies would benefit the PCB industry as a whole

Patent pending for optional use by sponsor. For more information, contact John Ele at jackele@me.com.