[MWeston]

Okay, here's a little update just from the assembly side of things. Some people are going to bitch and moan and raise hell for anything I say other than "shipping today!", but I will share some insight into the development process of a new project. This is basically as Squidge explained it before.

The factory will not do all 4000 at once, even if they had absolutely every part in front of them. This is a brand new design using technology that still isn't adopted by all assemblers. That is the POP design. Also, the 0.4mm pitched parts tends to cause troubles and requires very specific and repeated procedures to be followed to guarantee success. Basically, we have to do this in small runs. I tested a few boards of the new design, then batches get larger like 20 boards then 100, then 400 and then maybe the balance but the procedure has to be nailed down before they will pump out thousands.

Unfortunately, right now I am seeing a failure rate of at least 25%. That doesn't really scare me as it doesn't mean the boards are junked. It just means the stencil thickness, reflow oven temperature profile and dwell times and maybe even the visual inspection stages have not been tweaked yet. Reflowing the boards and doing some touch ups brings them back to life and then they work fine. They just have to keep trying things slowly and figure out all the tough areas so that those get extra attention and the areas of the boards that never fail can get a quick inspection. A final burn in test of each board will confirm that everything works.

We need to get the failure rate down to about 3% to get production going full speed. The manual labor on patching or re-running 3000 boards is financial suicide so you can see why things are not going as we would have liked. The biggest mistake any manufacturer can do is ship boards without feeling 100% confident in the hardware. It's common practice to use customers to test your beta software *cough* *Archos* *cough* but never to test hardware.

The other good news is that once this process is nailed down, we shouldn't see such headaches and delays for future batches. Everything is new right now and even though I have the most experience with this stuff in the group, I have never worked with such tiny, tiny little parts before. Going from 0.5mm to 0.4mm pitch BGA parts is a bigger leap than the numbers would suggest. Any fellow Engineers on the board might know what I'm talking about.

[Eniko]

Expectations were set that Pandoras should be in many, many people's hands towards the end of November

Then I think some people were overly optimistic as the official sources quoted November 30th to start shipping, which means the first Pandora wouldn't arrive til December 2nd at the earliest, which is early December, not end of November.

[fettouhi]

It seems the UK is finished now - people in Europe have started getting emails now.

Yep, just got my e-mail this evening. So I'll wait for the funds to clear and I will transfer the funds again as said in the e-mail.

Regards

André

[chiark]

Beautiful, thank you MWeston. That explains what's going on perfectly, and gives insight into what's going on which is all I hoped to know...

If anyone bitches and moans and raises hell, they need to understand what they've put money down on. I'm happy with that, and would love to see updates regular updates like that.

Wonderful

[mali]

Thank you very much

[Esn]

Thank you very much

Seconded.

Thanks a lot for the update!

[WizardStan]

So why the hate?

You're asking that based on one little excerpt from my post that you took completely out of context. Did you miss this?

It was a general query, not necessarily aimed at you.

[Zor Prime]

Okay, here's a little update ...

Very nice to hear about what is going on, thanks MWeston!

[socket]

Thanks for the update! Sounds daunting but awesomely exciting to be working on something of such scale. Good luck on getting it to acceptable failure! I haven't dealt with anything close to this magnitude of complexity in terms of "mass" production but understand how this first run is by far the hardest part and things will get easier once things get rolling and the process is streamlined.

[TaG]

First, thanks MWeston for the update. Interesting stuff.

Title: Why All The Repetitive Topics Asking The Same Things.

In the interests of the environment I am going to recycle my posts - mainly because people keep coming up almost identical questions. This is the summary in case you can't be bothered to read the rest:

It would be nice to receive the type of news you said. But everytime the devs release snippets like that the boards go crazy, over-analyze and moan that they need more detail and better answers. So it goes on...

I cannot see what harm a small update would do (heck chip can even write it for them).

Very generous of you to let even Chip write it for them, especially after it has been announced that Chip is going to do the PR for them...

That said, I'd like to think anyone who preordered knew the risks when they clicked 'submit,'

Please everybody remember you put your money down for a device that did not exist. If you cannot cope with everything running to a carefully defined schedule without any hitches then you should not have pre-ordered. Based on some people's comments in some threads I cannot imagine why they did pre-order.

No where anywhere in the bill of sale does it say "and ongoing information about the progress of said device and all setbacks that it may receive". We are not entitled to this information. It is by definition a gift that we get information, and it's more than Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and even GPH have given to the community.

Good point well made.

I guess I have to be more careful with what I say now. Some people seem to read way to much into some things while completely ignoring others.

As much as there is a schedule, we're on it.

There is no 100% solid ship date for the first Pandoras. If there were, we'd tell you.

Everything that needs finishing up before full production begins is being worked on. Every unforeseen problem that pops up is being handled as it comes. We are making definite progress, and (with the exception of the bank issue) things look to be on the same general timeframe that we've expected. I don't want to say "We'll have a finished Pandora next week" because If I do, and we don't, then heads will explode. I don't want to say "We'll have a finished Pandora sometime next month" because that would start a whole other round of questions, complaints, and speculation.

Just sit tight. I should have something for you soon.

Does this not sum up the problem: every tidbit over-analyzed. Even Chip is having to re-think the words he uses because of it.

An official update in the official update thread sharing the current plan would really be appreciated. If that isn't possible, perhaps an explanation of what's on the plan (particularly the critical path) and anticipated dates would be really helpful?

I realise that is asking to share a lot, warts and all, but in my naivity I think it should be possible.

I don't interpret this as whinging. It is a reasonable request. It is however a no win situation. Here's another recycled post:

Forum: Give us an update.
Devs:
Forum: Give us an update - no matter how small.
Devs:
Forum: Give us an update - no matter how small. Please.
Devs:
Forum: Give us an update - no matter how small. Please. Otherwise we'll throw our toys out of the pram.
Devs: OK, here's an update but it is brief. There's nothing much to say other than we are very busy.
Forum: That update didn't tell me exactly what I wanted to know. Give us an update.
Devs: '''!'''

Repeat ad-nauseum.

Questions, demands, snippets as requested, over-analysis, not enough for people, rinse and repeat.

[cherrycyanide]

Thanks for the update. Im expecting pandora next year.

[_Sterling]

It was a general query, not necessarily aimed at you.

Oh. heh. *sheepish*

Indeed. Peace, love, and popsicles, yo.

+1 to eniko

I liked MWeston's post. Left me with a lot to read up on WRT PCB manufacturing. Should keep me off the forums for a few hours. Well done.

[chiark]

Just to give some insight into this...



10mmx10mm 0.4mm pitch BGA with 529 connectors against a dime. A dime is 17mm in diameter... Slightly smaller than a pound coin, or a euro coin.

Five hundred and twenty nine connectors in less space than a pound coin.

Yeah, that sort of puts the difficulty of assembling it into context!

[belthos]

[quote name='MWeston' date='Nov 20 2008, 01:54 PM' post='670836']

Unfortunately, right now I am seeing a failure rate of at least 25%.

We need to get the failure rate down to about 3% to get production going full speed.


------------------

For reference the xbox 360 came out with a shipped failure rate of 30% in 2007 and is reportedly at 16-17% failure in 2008. These numbers are based on retailers reports.

I think I can cheerfully wait a few weeks to get my toy done right the first time instead of wishing the pandora folks were as eager to push out alpha quality hardware as microsoft

Belthos.

Can you say.....
Red Ring of Death?

[7zark7]

I cannot see what harm a small update would do (heck chip can even write it for them).

"Very generous of you to let even Chip write it for them, especially after it has been announced that Chip is going to do the PR for them... "

Was actually a nod to the good work that chip is doing , i.e. they just need to tell him whats going on and he will write it for them.

If it was taken in any other way it was not intended

7Zark7

This post has been edited by 7zark7: 20 November 2008 - 10:02 PM