Defense Department specifications (aka mil specs), once the foundation (and bane, depending on whom you asked) of electronics design and production, continue to fade away.
I was around for the sunsetting of MIL-STD-275 by its commercial equivalent, IPC-D-275 (now the IPC-222x series). The industry spent quite a bit of time making that changeover occur.
Some specs, however, have lingered on. MIL-PRF-31032 is one. That spec establishes general performance requirements and the corresponding verification requirements for bare printed circuit boards. The standard, and the related QML, have been all but ignored in practice in favor of the IPC-601X series for some time, but remained on the books well past the acquisition reform effort in the early 1990s spearheaded by then Defense Secretary William Perry to move the Pentagon to commercial off-the-shelf parts and update the standards and procurement processes.
But alas for those lovers of old things, because on March 4, the Defense Logistics Agency, the unit responsible for maintaining the mil specs, announced plans to cancel “the 31032.”
Comments to the proposed action will close April 3, but this is a formality for what will assuredly be its death knoll, as DLA indicates its custodianship of standard will “cease” as of April. As such, anyone who wants to maintain the document must accept responsibility for them. Good luck.
