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PlanetISO
IPC and J-STD electronics assemblyShort courseFoundation

IPC-A-610 Essentials: Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies

How to judge an assembly the way a trained inspector does, condition by condition

Duration
3 hours
Modules
6
Final exam
70% to pass
Certificate
No expiry
$99
  • Lifetime access to the course and your certificate
  • Verifiable Certificate of Completion. Certificate does not expire.
  • 3 exam attempts
  • Progress saved to your account on every slide
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$420.75

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Each seat is a single-use code. Send one to each learner; they sign in with their own account and earn their own certificate. Track progress on your Team page.

About this course

IPC-A-610, Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies, is the visual standard that aerospace, defense and medical customers write into their drawings when they want to know that a finished circuit board is good enough. This course teaches you to use it the way a trained inspector does: find the class on the drawing, know the four condition categories, recognise each condition in words, and decide what happens next.

You will learn what the standard is and is not, how it relates to J-STD-001 and to the customer's drawing, and what the three product classes mean. Then you work through the conditions in the order an inspector meets them: handling and contamination, mechanical damage, hardware and marking, component installation, through-hole and surface mount solder joints, laminate and conformal coating. For every defect you learn the process cause behind it, because a reject without a cause is a reject that comes back. The final module shows you how to write a nonconformance that leads to a fix, how to use process indicators as improvement data, and what customers and auditors ask when they verify inspector competence.

The course is for inspectors, assembly operators who check their own work, quality engineers, supervisors and anyone who receives, buys or audits electronic assemblies at an aerospace, defense or medical device supplier. It describes criteria at the level of principle in its own words. It does not reproduce the standard, and your site needs the current revision for the figures.

The course closes with a 20-question examination drawn from a bank of 30. On passing you receive a PlanetISO Certificate of Completion with lifetime access to the course. The certificate does not expire.

What you will be able to do

  • Explain what IPC-A-610 covers, how it relates to J-STD-001 and the drawing, and how the order of precedence works.
  • Identify the product class from the customer's documentation and apply the criteria for that class only.
  • Distinguish target, acceptable, defect and process indicator conditions and state what each means for disposition.
  • Recognise handling, mechanical damage, hardware, marking, cleanliness and foreign material conditions and classify them.
  • Describe acceptable through-hole and surface mount solder joints in words and name the process cause behind common defects.
  • Judge laminate, conformal coating and cleanliness conditions and write a nonconformance that can be verified, trended and acted on.
  • Explain how process indicators feed improvement and what evidence demonstrates inspector competence to customers and auditors.

Course outline

  1. 1

    What IPC-A-610 is and is not

    An acceptability standard used at inspection, how it relates to J-STD-001 and to the drawing, the three product classes, and the four condition categories that decide disposition.

    About 30 minutes, then a module quiz

  2. 2

    Handling and general conditions

    ESD and contamination, mechanical damage, hardware installation, marking, cleanliness and foreign material: the conditions that apply to the whole assembly before you look at a single joint.

    About 30 minutes, then a module quiz

  3. 3

    Component installation

    Orientation and polarity, lead forming and stress relief, spacing and mounting height, adhesive, and the line between a defect and a process indicator in installation conditions.

    About 30 minutes, then a module quiz

  4. 4

    Soldering acceptability: through-hole

    What a good plated-through-hole joint looks like, hole fill and lead protrusion, and the defects you will meet most often with the process cause behind each.

    About 35 minutes, then a module quiz

  5. 5

    Soldering acceptability: surface mount

    Chip, gull wing, J-lead, bottom-terminated and area array components and connectors: overhang and overlap concepts, tombstoning, billboarding, voids, and how magnification changes what you see.

    About 35 minutes, then a module quiz

  6. 6

    Laminate, coating, cleanliness and documenting findings

    Board-level conditions, conformal coating, writing a nonconformance that leads to a cause, sampling, process indicators as improvement data, and how customers and auditors verify inspector competence.

    About 35 minutes, then a module quiz

  7. Final examination and certificate

    20 questions drawn from the course bank. Score 70% or higher to receive your Certificate of Completion.

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