Lead free and RoHS: Do we need to be concerned?
Most design engineers have heard about new environmental regulations governing electronic equipment. They want to find out more about these rules, but not spend an enormous amount of time doing so, and most are very interested in doing what they can to help protect the environment.
Design engineers would like to believe this is a problem for operations.
The RoHS directive, short for Restriction of Hazardous Substances, takes effect in the European Union in July 2006. The directive limits the use of six substances: lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium Vi, polybrominated biphenyls, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers in specific�mostly consumer�types of products.
By and large, design engineers know there are a lot of significant issues around this topic, but would like to believe that this is a problem for the operations or materials department�or even better, the contract manufacturer. That's not going to be the case.
The first time a lead-free-soldered pc board goes down the production line at temperatures 25°C higher than before and half the boards fail final test, your friends in operations will be craving your immediate attention. When subtle changes to pc-board laminates alter the impedance of your very-high-speed and very expensive backplane, you will be asked to solve the problem.
Even if your product does not fall under the RoHS directive, or is not sold in Europe, almost all IC, passive, and connector manufacturers are moving to lead-free materials and most will not continue to make the older-style devices. These new materials have different properties and may affect the reliability of your products.
Furthermore, other regions will soon be following Europe's lead. California has a very limited RoHS-like law on the books that takes effect in January 2007. In the next few years other states will also enact RoHS-like legislation. Japan is already leading the environmental charge, and China is expected to join the movement soon.
With the article titled “A love affair with lead,” written by Avnet's Glenn Bassett and i2's Don Lesem, in this issue we begin a series of short and succinct articles on this important topic. Look for these informative articles every month, along with a table updating the lead-free/RoHS status of a variety of selected components. Please e-mail me with any comments you may have.
Jim Harrison
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