A european question : RoHS

Yes, we will move to lead free anyway for this reason. My concern as a small producer is the transition period. Some of our component reels could have lasted for years in principle, at the rate we use them! We can throw away the cheap parts, and use up some of the expensive ones before the deadline. But we do have stocks of semiconductors in particular that we would have liked to keep using, for however long they last. But at the same time we would rather buy new stock as lead-free, provided we can use it in the same (SMT) process. (I don't know if this will work, yet. Opinion seems to be "probably".)

(Only just noticed this bit from Frank... Our stuff usually has an RS485 port, does that count?)

That sounds more likely!

Hello Rene,

If you use contract mfg, maybe even in Asia, you probably aren't a really small company. The problems will come for those with highly specialized products in low volumes.

That's not a good thing. It will lead to a smaller number of product offerings and higher prices for Europeans, while the rest of the world (and companies there, too) will enjoy lower pricing. Protectionism has never really worked in the long run.

I see a different trend, at least for medical electronics. Small companies are gobbled up by big ones at a regular pace. Same for consumer electronics where companies like Sony and Panasonic rule. They don't have millions in the red...

Regards, Joerg

I'm a small company and don't see real problems. I just tell my pcb assembler to use lead free technology, pay a bit more and am done with. Yes, I do have a stack of spare parts for prototypes, leadfree or not, I'm just going to use them anyway. They are few compared to a series. Whether I'll be soldering prototypes with or without lead it to be seen.

Remember, this RoHS was invented to keep the competition out(beside the environmental thought), so it must be good.

It is the small ones that grow and the big ones that vanish. While the bigger companies can indeed have hundreds of millions in the negative every year, the smaller ones act much quicker, have to.

Rene

Hello Rene,

If you don't mind my asking, what would that be?

Many Asian contract mfg places have silently done that, too. Every time I asked I was told "no problem, as long as all the parts you design in are available sans lead". I bet that most European politicians don't know that. So when they realize that some of their high-tech folks start to drive taxi cabs or file for unemployment this RoHS could turn into another one of their "oh s--t" experiences.

In big politics your success is pretty much a function of your pile of money and thus lobbying power.

Regards, Joerg

Hello John,

That would require a talk with your contract mfg. However, lead free parts have been on the market for quite a while so it shouldn't be a big issue. Slide 28 of this IPC presentation kind of corroborates that:

Regards, Joerg

That is exactly what I did. The market broke down more than a year ago. Those outsourcing for lack of capacity now do it themselves with the staff on the payroll. Those how outsourced for lack of knowledge give now their staff on the payroll the chance to learn how to do it. Now I'm moving to something else.

It sure doesn't work, especially since the Japanese have solved the lead problem 10 years ago and silently deliver lead free.

Those who have to have public shares are not to be helped. A silly thing for small companies anyway.

Rene

Provided we can mix with lead free parts. Otherwise we would need to keep buying non-lead-free too, and it will never end...

Slide 28, which says that Tin Whiskers are a big problem that needs addressing?

Or the next few slides detailing severe problems occurring with a small amount of lead contamination in lead-free soldering?

Or pointing out the 30 degree-C higher soldering temperatures?

Or is that page 28 (slide 35), back to the Tin Whiskers problem?

Yes, thanks for that, very reassuring...

They don't know either!

Joerg, thanks for that.

Well I didn't say that I was totally happy with the situation! :(

It is a worry. I am not sure what to do about it. If it really is a big problem, I wonder how Japan has mamanaged to "change over 10 years ago"? I guess I was hoping that the incidence would be rare enough that we would not see it with our small quantities. I.e., if it is frequent enough for *us* to ever see it, it would be an impossible situation for the people that make millions of units. Then again, perhaps it takes more than the typical 1-year warranty period for the whiskers to grow.

For us, these will only be a worry if and when we do "switch over" to completely lead-free. By which time hopefully such issues will be either sorted out.(?)

I see we have our sarcastic head on this morning! :)

Hello John,

For some reason my server seems to have dropped many posts this morning so I can't see who wrote the one before you (Win?).

FWIW, I meant "slide 28" and not the PDF page 28. Look on the number on the slide, not what Adobe Acrobat says. Slide 28 is on PDF page 21. Anyway, at least it's a comment by a heavyweight (IPC) regarding mixed assemblies.

Regards, Joerg

From

Lead-free alloy soldering temperature is higher (30°C -

Thermal fatigue of solder joints - not well understood, research is on-going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Tin-whiskers from electroplated tin termination coatings - not fully understood, research is on-going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Delamination of multi-layer PCBs

Damage to plated through holes - especially with narrow holes in thicker laminate

PCB warping - can damage components, cause open circuits, misalignment

IC packages are more susceptible to ?pop-corn? failure. The IPC/JEDEC-020B Moisture Sensitivity Level for components with lead-free soldering can be

Damage to heat sensitive components Check upper temperature limit in manufacturers datasheet

Wetting of most lead-free solders is inferior to tin/lead.

Just to *really* make your day.

Nice of them to research stuff after making it law !

Graham

But it was all sorted out, 10 years ago, in Japan, wasn't it? How do they overcome these problems? Or do they "cheat" there too? Is their lead- free rule simply another anti- import protection of the kind they have so much experience of, and which the EMC directive was meant to be for Europe?

Paul Burke

The way I heard it, the use of MTBE was a compromise so that Big Oil wouldn't fight too hard. The purpose of the regulation was to get a minimum level of oxygen into the components of gasoline to improve emissions by more thorough burning of the fuel. Ethyl Alcohol was the originally-intended oxygenator, which meant it would get political support from Big Corn states. The oil producers showed they could get the same oxygen benefit from MTBE, which was easy to make in the refineries, and cheaper than EthA. Of course, if the ground water had ended up being contaminated with ethyl alcohol, few would be complaining.

Aren't the people who advise on the technical aspects mostly engineers on loan from large corporations anyhow?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello Graham,

Nothing new in Europe. In Germany they started to make it nearly impossible to hire people for those part-time flat-tax jobs, probably to squeeze out more taxes. So the jobs simply vanished. Afterwards unemployment really shot up. Duh. But we do that, too. In California they absolutely had to have oxygenated gasoline. So they mixed MTBE into it. This lowered the gas mileage by at least 10% (I get 25mpg on CA gas and 28mpg on NV gas) but the whopper was the serious environmental damage caused by seepage into ground water. Once it's there it's too late.

Asian manufacturers have figured out the lead-free assy scheme to a large extent. But what surprises me is that the EU parliament or whoever is responsible for these hip shot laws doesn't provide a hands-on "how to" guide along with the law.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Richard,

What the regulators failed to recognize was that the pollution is to a large extent coming from Diesel engines. School buses are the worst around here, I keep a respectable distance before they step on it and a plume of black soot spews out. In our neighborhood you can almost smell when school is out.

Either someone couldn't design a proper engine or the fuel is bad.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Graham,

It will hit mostly medium and small biz in Europe. That is why I don't understand why there wasn't more lobbying effort against it. I mean, they are usually all members of the chamber of commerce.

If that stuff was pulled off here in the US the affected trade groups would start hurling boulders, peppering their representatives with letters and so on. Somehow I have the feeling the democratic process in Europe isn't what it used to be or got lopsided and now leans towards the bureaucrats.

Regards, Joerg