LONDON, Jan. 4 -- A new study launched by a U.K. electronics association will compare manufacturing yields of similar sized electronics manufacturers.

The PPM Project, sponsored by SMART Group and the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, seeks to measure defect levels of tin/lead and lead-free assemblies. The groups will use parts per million defective as the main metric. Companies across Europe will be included in the study, which will be based on existing product acceptability methods to ensure results can be easily compared.

In a press statement, the groups said that "a common question is, How does my process compare with other companies' in terms of yield? The information did not exist or was not easily available to small and medium volume companies until the launch of the project."

IPC and IEC standards will be used to support the PPM evaluation, the groups said.

The PPM Project is part of LeadOut, an effort to inform and prepare electronics manufacturers for lead-free products. Results will be available from the LeadOut Website soon. For more information contact technical@smartgroup.org.