Local experience (not field of electronics!) has shown that partners in 
Taiwan, China, India, etc. are reliable for the first contract only. They 
are well aware that they can avoid any repercussions if they simply ignore 
you and pursue marketing with your development and intellectual property.

Kind of like Toshiba selling US submarine technology to the USSR...
or bees stealing honey from another colony's hive.

I stop short of saying don't do business there, but I will say giving them 
the keys to the operation will assure you get locked out of your own 
business.

John Ferrell
http://DixieNC.US

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "roines reenig" <roinesreenig@yahoo.com>
To: <piclist@mit.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 7:27 AM
Subject: [OT:] Looking for a PCB manufacturing/assembly partner


> We've been having trouble with our current Taiwanese
> board partner. We found out that they've been padding
> up the parts costs with their suppliers. I won't name
> names yet. We're still dependent on them. We  are now
> lookin for a more honest partner who can be trusted
> and can expect trustworthy behavior from us too.
>
> We're planning to move to a new design and
> architecture for our productline. The board we're
> designing is a typical embedded board. IE: mainboard
> with cpu, ram, flash and IO. We've picked the geode as
> the core system processor and we'd have serial ports
> to interface with various daughterboards that have
> PICs and sensors of various types. I'd guess our
> mainboard design will likely be a 5-7 layer 3.5"x5"
> PCB with a limited number of BGA components and then a
> mix of SMT and throughhole parts.
>
> We've got a team of low level software and digital
> design hardware guys. Our hardware guys are confident
> that they can handle all the schematic design and
> capture themselves. The work they're uncertain about
> is the board layout work. Given that, we're looking
> for a manufacturing and assembly partner who would be
> willing to consult with us on the layout and help us
> out for a fee if we run into trouble. The type of
> business we want is that when we do a design, we'd pay
> a downpayment and preorder a specified number of
> boards. In return, we'd expect the partner to take on
> handling of inventory and manufacturing details.
>
> I was hoping that some of you may have gone through
> this type of process. I'd really like to get advice
> from people who used particular vendors. Suggestions
> and recommendations would be great.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> -- 
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
> 


-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist