The first thing you do with a bad board is try to figure out what's wrong. Often, you get things like poor solder joints for pins on a QFP, etc. Most of the time, you can just fix it and ship it, although any fixed board would undergo more extensive testing before being sent. If the problem isn't an easy fix, then you start hacking at it to determine what's wrong. The instant you do that, it's toast as far as being a sellable product. There are some other sorts of "minor" problems that also toast the board, like a problem with a solder ball for the BGA. If we can't figure out what's wrong, then we try to salvage parts. Any board that's been hacked at or any part that's been salvaged is usually not fit to be sold, so we turn those into "engineering" boards that we use internally or give away for free. Warranty returns will undergo similar processes.
BTW, now that we're on the topic of fall-out... as engineers, we think about boards costing $X in parts and selling for $Y, making $(Y-X) in profit. But the big picture is that we bring in $(n*Y), but we spend $(X*(n+b)), where b is the number of boards that fail testing and can't be repaired. This affects Y in a non-trivial way. Furthermore, while there's the idea of selling hacked/salvaged boards for a discount, that's only worth-while if there's no warranty, but having no warranty is always bad news, especially when what you're selling has a higher probability of breaking. On 4/28/05, Patrick McNamara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yeah, I know. :) Same things happen for boards, though at a much lower rate. > Well, one would hope it's at a much lower rate. > > I'd love to be able to do the same with a development board too, but we'll > have > to see if a) somebody manages to kill a debug board or b) if my wallet will > survive it. > > Patrick M > > --- Timothy Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > There's a certain fall-out rate when chips are produced. We could > > have the fab house send us the bad ones separately and we could sell > > them for a few bucks apiece. :) > > > > On 4/28/05, Patrick McNamara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > So, I'll go on record as wanting to get a development card (maybe two). > > I'll > > > also want to get a production ASIC card (probably two), as well as a bare > > ASIC. > > > > > > Because someone is going to ask what I want a bare ASIC for, I share ahead > > of > > > time. I'm surrounded by professional chip designers on a daily basis. > > When we > > > finally succeed in getting a shipping product, it will be something all of > > us > > > should be proud of. That bare ASIC is going to be embedded in Lexan, > > framed, > > > and hung on my cube wall. :) I'm considering doing the same thing with > > one of > > > the production cards. > > > > > > Patrick M > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Open-graphics mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics > > > List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com) > > > > > > _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
