Hi,
I am after some recommendations and peoples experience with PCB suppliers that work in the aerospace or military fields.
We currently source PCB's out of China, but one particular customer has an extremely mission critical aerospace application where we want to have the best possible quality of PCB.
We are finding the quality control out of asia is not really upto spec. A failure is potentially a multi million dollar loss. So we need to have confidence that the quality control is extremely tight.
We are currently having to scrap most of the PCB's we are receiving as they are not meeting our quality standards.
I am thinking to give Wurth a try, any thoughts?
Thanks
I'm not sure I'd ask on here, but am curious about any suggestions.
What about these guys:
https://www.ttmtech.com , or
http://www.lintek.com.au Also, there is a company I believe in Canberra (do not remember their name on top of my head) that does mainly military work, that could be OK.
https://www.hetech.com.au in Brisbane may be able to help out with sourcing the right PCBs, but you could be paying a 'middle man' for the 'help'
No experience with either of them, just trowing out some names that come to mind.
For non space PCBs we have often used ACB in Belgium, the quality is also very high:
https://www.acb.be/
I see they have some ESA certification on their website from 2017.
So they might be able to do space stuff too.
We have used Systronic in France for satellite PCBs.
http://www.cimulecgroup.com/en/le-groupe-cimulec/systronic.php
Those were very high quality PCBs, but the prices are not the same than in China
For non space PCBs we have often used ACB in Belgium, the quality is also very high:
https://www.acb.be/
I have heard a lot of good things about Würth but we haven't tried them yet.
Can you say something about the pricing? I understand you may not want to give out exact numbers, but having an idea of what to expect would be good.
Offhand, Advanced Circuits
www.4pcb.com does mil/ITAR/whatever, probably includes space approval too?
Tim
We are finding the quality control out of asia is not really upto spec. A failure is potentially a multi million dollar loss. So we need to have confidence that the quality control is extremely tight.
We are currently having to scrap most of the PCB's we are receiving as they are not meeting our quality standards.
There are so many things wrong in one post
1. If a sizable portion of the PCBs you receive are failing, either you are violating DRC or the board house is trash. I have never in my life encountered a single faulty PCB, and I've used both chinese and non-chinese board houses. PCB failures is something you are basically not supposed to encounter ever.
2. If a single failure means a million dollar loss, it is unthinkable to me that you would rely on the QC of an ordinary PCB fabhouse, even the top end ones. NO one will cover collateral damage without a contract (good luck getting Wurth to sign such a contract). Such things are your responsibility, and I think this question falls into the "if you have to ask..." category. If you are the most competent person in your company then I don't think your company is prepared to take on such a project (that is the polite version).
Just because they aren't going to put their money where their mouth is insuring your
entire freaking mission on account of their one part, doesn't mean they can't provide a meaningfully lower risk, through whatever means are applicable (e.g., higher spec materials, better bake-out, better inspection, mechanical tests, temp cycle tests..).
Tim
For the space PCB it was a bit under 2000 € for the tooling plus two prototype PCBs (8 layers, polymide 1.6mm, 10*10 cm, no solder mask, no silkscreen).
For ACB I don't have the details here, I only have the offer for the fully populated circuit. But if I remember correctly it was around 200-300 € per PCB for small series, 12 layers, FR4, 8*12 cm. The price was high because it was a very dense PCB (class 12, some places had less than 60 µm clearance). They get cheaper if you have a more reasonable clearance. This PCB didn't have microvias or burried vias, but had vias in pads. The price is so much dependant on what you want that it's better to ask them with your design files.
We are finding the quality control out of asia is not really upto spec. A failure is potentially a multi million dollar loss. So we need to have confidence that the quality control is extremely tight.
I've used TTM and Advanced circuits for extremely high spec / tight tolerance things.
We are currently having to scrap most of the PCB's we are receiving as they are not meeting our quality standards.
What exactly is wrong? Are you talking cosmetic, performance (impedance tolerance) or gross functional problems like shorts/opens? Have you talked to your boardhouse about this? Asian boardhouses are definitely *capable* of providing very high quality PCBs (look at smartphones for instance). Not every one does of course, but you may find that you are just not communicating your expectations properly.
1. If a sizable portion of the PCBs you receive are failing, either you are violating DRC or the board house is trash. I have never in my life encountered a single faulty PCB, and I've used both chinese and non-chinese board houses. PCB failures is something you are basically not supposed to encounter ever.
That depends on what you are doing. For small standard process boards that is true. However if you do weird things, the fab house may not have good design rules. I had a project with a very large board (16 inches) with a weird stackup where we got one batch that had terrible drill alignment that was breaking out of the annular rings. The problem was that slightly non-uniform shrinkage during curing caused the alignment to drift across the board. They simply hadn't made boards like that before, and their standard annular ring tolerances were too tight. This sort of thing happens. They worked with us to figure out how to improve it (changed the material to one with better dimensional accuracy and increased annular rings) and reran the fab.
You can take a look at
https://fineline-global.com , they will get you any quantity of any PCB technology manufactured to any standard you want.
And then there's
https://de.beta-layout.com/ , they're an approved supplier for a few big space/defense companies, and are not only used for prototypes.
I thought you needed special resins in the pcb substrates for space due to the vacuum resulting in outgassing. Can't recall where I read this.
I thought you needed special resins in the pcb substrates for space due to the vacuum resulting in outgassing. Can't recall where I read this.
Most FR4-Materials perform quite well in terms of outgassing and longevity for space applications. Probably won't find much on a deep-space probe, but especially the Nano-Satellites use it extensively.
Of course, cube and nano sats aren't intended for long mission lives, and they're far cheaper to launch, and more numerous. So using lower reliability materials is quite justified.
Tim
It also depends on what you're trying to do. A common communications satellite can probably deal with a bit of outgassing, but deep space probes are typically littered with sensors easily thrown off by a thin film of molecules. Smaller probes aren't expected to live long enough for it to be an issue.
Perhaps surprisingly outgassing is also a concern inside the ISS due to volatile compounds being recirculated and building up over time.
1. If a sizable portion of the PCBs you receive are failing, either you are violating DRC or the board house is trash. I have never in my life encountered a single faulty PCB, and I've used both chinese and non-chinese board houses. PCB failures is something you are basically not supposed to encounter ever.
Not passing QC and failing are two very different things.
I thought you needed special resins in the pcb substrates for space due to the vacuum resulting in outgassing. Can't recall where I read this.
As some others have already said, FR4 can be acceptable. For deep space stuff (for example orbiting Saturn) the company I work for has made components (not PCBs) in PTFE (or similar grades such as FEP, PFA, ETFE). I know some PCB fabs that can make boards with PTFE substrates, not sure if that is for space applications or just general high temperature, low leakage.
Another issue is the radiation. Some plastics will degrade over time due to the increased radiation in space. PTFE works fine, but I am not sure about regular FR4 though (especially for deep space long lifetime missions).
The company I work for also makes components that go inside nuclear reactors, there PTFE does not work because the radiation is too high (many orders of magnitude higher than space)! Material such as PEEK or Polyimide (Kapton) works very well in such environments, we even guarantee 60+ year lifetime dose + hypothetical meltdown dose of radiation for some products.
But these materials absorb some small amount of water, hence for critical space missions they need to be baked/dried at higher temperature to prevent outgassing, hence they are only used for space applications when really required.
As some others have already said, FR4 can be acceptable. For deep space stuff (for example orbiting Saturn) the company I work for has made components (not PCBs) in PTFE (or similar grades such as FEP, PFA, ETFE). I know some PCB fabs that can make boards with PTFE substrates, not sure if that is for space applications or just general high temperature, low leakage.
Interesting that all kinds of factors come into play with extreme conditions such as space and high radiation environments. I can imagine that for an application environment such as space you rather go for the best prooven solution than try something a bit cheaper and we'll see what happens over time.
Thanks for sharing.