# IPC Class Selector: Which IPC-A-610 Class Does Your Product Need? > Source: https://netray.co/tools/ipc-class-selector > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: Free Tools ## Short answer Answer 8 questions about failure consequence, environment, and service life to see whether your product needs IPC Class 1, 2, or 3. ## Category electronics ## Tool **Kind:** assessment **Questions:** #### What happens if this product fails in the field? **Help:** This is the single strongest driver of IPC class. Be honest about worst-case consequence, not typical. **Options:** ##### Safety hazard, mission loss, or risk to life **Score:** 3 ##### Major cost, downtime, or mission degradation **Score:** 2 ##### A service call and an annoyed customer **Score:** 1 ##### Minor inconvenience; user replaces the product **Score:** 0 #### What environment will the product operate in? **Options:** ##### Extreme: aerospace, military, downhole, engine bay **Score:** 3 ##### Harsh: wide thermal cycling, vibration, humidity, outdoor **Score:** 2 ##### Industrial indoor: dust, moderate temperature swings **Score:** 1 ##### Benign: office, home, climate-controlled **Score:** 0 #### What is the expected service life? **Options:** ##### Over 15 years **Score:** 3 ##### 5-15 years **Score:** 2 ##### 2-5 years **Score:** 1 ##### Under 2 years **Score:** 0 #### How repairable is the product once deployed? **Help:** Products that cannot be reached or repaired in service (satellites, implants, subsea) push toward Class 3. **Options:** ##### Cannot be repaired in service (space, implant, subsea) **Score:** 3 ##### Repair is possible but very costly or disruptive **Score:** 2 ##### Field-repairable with modest effort **Score:** 1 ##### Disposable or trivially swappable **Score:** 0 #### What quality requirements flow down from customers or regulators? **Options:** ##### Defense/space flow-downs: J-STD-001 Class 3 or 3A, MIL specs **Score:** 3 ##### Regulated industry: medical (ISO 13485), automotive (IATF 16949), avionics **Score:** 2 ##### Commercial quality standards (ISO 9001) only **Score:** 1 ##### No formal external requirements **Score:** 0 #### What is the product's duty cycle? **Options:** ##### Continuous 24/7 operation where downtime is mission-critical **Score:** 3 ##### Continuous operation with tolerable maintenance windows **Score:** 2 ##### Regular daily use with idle periods **Score:** 1 ##### Occasional or intermittent use **Score:** 0 #### How does your market weigh cost against reliability? **Options:** ##### Reliability dominates; cost is secondary to assurance **Score:** 3 ##### Reliability is a differentiator worth paying for **Score:** 2 ##### Balanced; reliability matters but price wins deals **Score:** 1 ##### Cost dominates; the market is price-driven **Score:** 0 #### Do customers require objective workmanship evidence (inspection records, certs, coupons)? **Options:** ##### Yes: certified Class 3 evidence, test coupons, full inspection records **Score:** 3 ##### Formal CoCs and inspection data expected **Score:** 2 ##### Occasional quality documentation on request **Score:** 1 ##### No documentation expectations **Score:** 0 **Bands:** #### Class 1 territory (general electronic products) **Min:** 0 **Max:** 34 **Verdict:** Your answers describe a cost-driven product where the main requirement is that it functions, and where field failure is an inconvenience rather than a serious event. Paying for Class 2 or 3 workmanship here buys reliability your market will not reward. **Recommendations:** - Specify IPC-A-610 Class 1 on drawings and purchase orders so your CM does not silently quote a higher class - Put your quality budget into functional test coverage rather than cosmetic workmanship criteria - Revisit this assessment if the product moves into harsher environments or longer-life applications - Watch warranty return rates; a rising trend is the signal to consider Class 2 #### Class 2 territory (dedicated service electronics) **Min:** 35 **Max:** 69 **Verdict:** Your product needs continued performance and extended life, and failures are costly but not catastrophic. This is the home of Class 2, the workmanship level most industrial, telecom, and commercial-professional electronics are built to. It balances real reliability against manufacturing cost. **Recommendations:** - Specify IPC-A-610 Class 2 explicitly and align your CM's inspection criteria to it in the quality agreement - Identify any specific assemblies (safety circuits, power stages) that may justify selective Class 3 criteria - Ensure soldering operators and inspectors hold current IPC certification for Class 2 acceptance criteria - Add AOI coverage tuned to Class 2 defect definitions rather than generic settings - Document the class decision and rationale; auditors and new customers will ask #### Class 3 territory (high-reliability electronics) **Min:** 70 **Max:** 100 **Verdict:** Failure consequence, environment, service life, or contractual flow-downs put your product in high-reliability territory where continued performance on demand is non-negotiable. Expect Class 3 to add roughly 15-30% to assembly cost through tighter process control, inspection, and rework limits - and expect it to be worth it. **Recommendations:** - Specify IPC-A-610 Class 3 and J-STD-001 Class 3 on all fabrication and assembly documentation - Qualify your EMS partner's Class 3 capability with evidence: certified staff, x-ray, process controls, not just claims - Verify component and material selections support Class 3 (fill requirements, cleanliness, coating compatibility) - Implement full lot and serial traceability; Class 3 markets almost always demand it - For defense and space work, confirm whether Class 3A or additional MIL/NASA addenda apply beyond base Class 3 ## Content **Intro:** This free IPC class selector helps engineers, quality managers, and program leads determine whether an electronics product should be built to IPC-A-610 Class 1, 2, or 3. The class you specify drives workmanship acceptance criteria, inspection depth, rework limits, and ultimately 15-30% of your assembly cost, yet it is often chosen by habit rather than analysis. Eight questions walk through the factors the IPC framework actually turns on: failure consequence, operating environment, service life, repairability, and contractual flow-downs. Your score maps to a recommended class with specific implementation actions. **Sections:** #### What the three IPC classes mean **Body:** IPC-A-610, the industry's dominant workmanship standard, defines three product classes. Class 1 covers general electronic products where the primary requirement is that the assembly functions: consumer devices with short lives and low failure consequence. Class 2 covers dedicated service electronics where continued performance and extended life are required and failure is undesirable but not critical: most industrial controls, network equipment, and instruments. Class 3 covers high-performance electronics where continued performance on demand is critical, downtime cannot be tolerated, and the end-use environment may be uncommonly harsh: defense, aerospace, life support, and similar applications. The classes differ in acceptance criteria for solder fill, component alignment, cleanliness, and allowable rework, not in the process steps themselves. #### How this selector scores your answers **Body:** Each answer scores 0-3, where higher scores indicate stronger drivers toward a higher workmanship class, and your total converts to a percentage of the maximum. The questions deliberately mirror the language IPC uses to distinguish the classes: consequence of failure, demand for continued performance, environment severity, and the customer's need for objective evidence. No single answer forces a class by itself, but failure consequence and contractual flow-downs act as practical trump cards - if a contract mandates Class 3, the rest of the assessment only tells you how much margin the requirement has. The score-to-class mapping is: **Bullets:** - 0-34%: Class 1 indicators dominate; consequence and environment do not justify premium workmanship - 35-69%: the Class 2 profile that fits most industrial and professional electronics - 70-100%: consequence, environment, or flow-downs demand Class 3 discipline - Failure consequence and contractual flow-downs are the questions most worth revisiting if you land near a boundary #### The cost and supply-chain consequences of your class **Body:** Moving from Class 2 to Class 3 typically adds 15-30% to assembly cost through slower placement of critical joints, 100% inspection regimes, x-ray verification of hidden joints, tighter cleanliness testing, and stricter rework limits that scrap boards Class 2 would repair. It also narrows your EMS options, since genuine Class 3 capability requires certified operators, maintained equipment, and audit-ready process documentation that many contract manufacturers do not sustain. Under-specifying is worse: a Class 2 build in a Class 3 application shifts failure cost into the field, where it is one to two orders of magnitude more expensive. Mixed-class strategies - Class 3 criteria on safety-critical circuits within a Class 2 product - are legitimate and often the best economics, but they must be explicitly documented. #### How Netray helps you operationalize the class decision **Body:** Choosing a class is the easy part; enforcing it through your quality system is where programs stumble. Netray configures Infor SyteLine and Infor LN quality modules to carry class requirements on item and routing records, drive inspection plans and sampling by class, and capture the objective evidence - inspection results, certs, and serial-level traceability - that Class 3 customers audit. For aerospace and defense manufacturers we implement the flow-down chain from contract clause to shop-floor work instruction, so J-STD-001 and Class 3A requirements are provably met rather than assumed. If your class decision needs to survive an audit, the ERP is where it has to live. **Cta:** Talk to Netray about wiring IPC class requirements into your ERP quality workflows so the class you specify is the class you can prove. **Faq:** #### Who decides the IPC class: the OEM or the contract manufacturer? **Answer:** The OEM decides, because class selection depends on end-use consequence and market requirements the CM cannot know. IPC-A-610 itself states the customer defines the class. If you do not specify one, most CMs default to Class 2, which may be too much for a disposable consumer product or dangerously little for a high-reliability application. Put the class on drawings, POs, and the quality agreement. #### How much more does Class 3 really cost than Class 2? **Answer:** Industry experience clusters around 15-30% higher assembly cost, driven by tighter solder fill requirements, more inspection including x-ray for bottom-terminated components, stricter cleanliness testing, certified operator requirements, and lower rework allowances that increase scrap. The premium is larger at low volumes and on BGA-heavy designs. Materials cost changes little; the premium is process control and evidence. #### Can one product mix Class 2 and Class 3 requirements? **Answer:** Yes, and it is common practice. You can apply Class 3 acceptance criteria to specific safety-critical circuits, connectors, or solder joints while building the rest of the assembly to Class 2, provided the drawings identify exactly which features carry which criteria. This targeted approach captures most of the reliability benefit at a fraction of the full Class 3 premium, but it requires unambiguous documentation your CM's inspectors can follow. ## Search terms ipc class selector, ipc class 2 vs class 3, ipc-a-610 class requirements, ipc class 3 cost difference, electronics workmanship class, j-std-001 class selection --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json