Gary noted: So Cypress is suggestion that the vias to ground be masked over on the Top. It seems like that would keep the part up off of the pads. Gary: That was my initial reaction as well but it seems the theory is that you lay down a layer of solder paste that is thicker than the soldermask thickness, so the thermal pad makes contact with the paste. We have built several thousand boards like this and haven't seen an appreciable failure rate due to poor thermal contact, so it seems the Cypress technique works reasonably well. (and I guarantee you that this particular USB hub will overheat if it doesn't have a good thermal contact...our prototype boards didn't have the recommended thermal pad layout and half of them would overheat and shut down the USB hub pretty quickly.) Alan Ritter Surgical Equipment Design & Development Engineering Fellow (636) 226-3364 (Office) (636) 226-3552 (FAX) (314) 488-1139 (Mobile) Bausch + Lomb 3365 Treecourt Ind. Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63122 www.bausch.com<http://www.bausch.com/> [cid:image001.png@01CCDC09.30F9DEC0] PRIVILEGE AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in and/or attached to this e-mail message is intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is legally privileged, confidential or exempt from disclosure. If you think you received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the email and then delete it from your computer. Do not disclose the contents to anyone. Thank you.