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Lead-Free Electronics Full Steam Ahead
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Lead elimination directives call on companies to research the issue and the alternatives.
Chris Jorgensen
Quite a bit has happened in the past year, as U.S. electronics manufacturers try to untie the lead-free knot laid before them. This comes after fighting so hard in the early 1990s for exemption from U.S. legislation calling for the elimination of lead from electronics assemblies.
Just like that brother-in-law who shows up on your front porch one day for a quick visit, and quickly becomes ensconced in your living room, eating your potato chips and hogging the remote, lead-free electronics is back. Only this time, it is not domestic legislation, but pending legislation in Europe and the market savvy of some strong Japanese OEMs.
Pressure coming down from the pending Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive is calling for U.S. companies with European customers to be lead-free by 2004. Some companies are calling for their suppliers to be ready as early as 2003. If this passes (and there is no indication it will not), it will place a trade embargo on outside manufacturers supplying leaded product to Europe.
The director general for the European Commission (EC), Environment, recently indicated that industry is both the problem and the solution, and there are no signs that this transition cannot be accomplished.
An initiative like this leaves a company with one of two decisions: Forget the transition and lose the customer or prepare for the change to lead-free.
The same is happening in Japan right now, but the flavor is different - some may say bitter. Japanese OEMs were presented with proposed take-back legislation, basically calling for the OEMs to pay for the reclamation of their product in landfills. Seeing this as an unnecessary cost, and possibly using good foresight based on the WEEE Directive, several of these OEMs set stepped-up deadlines for lead elimination. One company went so far as to announce its minidisk player manufactured with lead-free solder, and marketed as such, gained 11 percent in its market in a very short time.
Although there has not been any more market data seen on these products, driving up the end product cost does not appear to be an issue. In Japan, products tattooed with a green leaf sticker are the same price, if not less expensive, than the competitor`s products. So, for those concerned about the consumer, it appears that at least one company has found a way to work around cost issues.
U.S. manufacturers, looking over the scene, are concerned. After exemption from the Reid Bill, very little activity took place to research alternatives. In fact, the only known collaborative effort was the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) 1997 Lead-free Solder Project. This study, conducted by OEMs, academia and laboratories, looked at 27 candidate materials and put them through a myriad of tests. The baseline for the test was Sn/Pb, for which the study could not find a drop-in replacement, although it still has good data on the other alloys and recommended usages.
Two other organizations that have recently put a lot of work into making the selection easier for the OEMs are the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) (www.nemi.org) and the International Tin Research Institute (ITRI) (www.lead-free.org). As the industry looks to find a drop-in replacement for Sn/Pb, IPC supports the progress made through these two projects, both of which have narrowed the selection by a wide margin.
IPC has also provided information to the industry. Be it the lead-free Web site (www.leadfree.org), leadfree@ipc.org e-mail forum or the International Summit on Lead-free Electronics Assemblies, the organization has done everything possible to keep the industry abreast of this issue.
In the meantime, these efforts have been called propaganda and a witch hunt, and those opinions are fine. Yet no one has presented anything proving the impossibility of this transition. In fact, it is being done, and on a large scale. It is up to the U.S. industry to be a market leader or a market follower.
One step in assisting the industry in this transition is the development of the IPC Roadmap for Lead-free Electronics Assemblies. This document, currently in its third draft, is gaining popularity - since its recent posting on the lead-free Web site, the document has been downloaded 620 times. Rather than providing the industry with IPC-proposed lead elimination dates, this roadmap offers the most relevant information on the issue. (Updates will be posted to the Lead-free Grapevine on the Web site and incorporated into the next draft.) Document information includes roadmaps of other organizations and Japanese companies, legislative updates, and a historical perspective of the issue.
Like any other IPC document, the development of this roadmap includes submitting it to industry for review and comments, with comments resolved at meetings. These meetings also serve as peer interaction from people representing all sectors of the electronics interconnection industry. During these meetings, representatives discuss their perspectives on roadblocks and resolutions, materials selection criteria, and process considerations; all of which have been included in the document.
IPC`s plan is to keep this roadmap a living document, updating it periodically. The hope is to prevent this issue from being brushed under the carpet once more and to keep the industry focused.
While there is no real data projecting just how much money this transition will cost, it can be assumed that the industry as a whole will be interested in keeping costs to a minimum. Progress made through the down-selection of alloys by NEMI and ITRI-UK, as well as the continuing efforts of the industry pooling their resources for the roadmap development, hopefully will stem any unnecessary costs.
With the level of interest this industry has shown in the roadmap and competitiveness issues with Japanese companies, one would think U.S. companies would announce their own plans for lead elimination, even if on a product-specific basis. Rumors of companies with lead-free lines up and running, and others with plans to have product on the market by year`s end abound, but no confirmation has been made.
There are several perspectives on why a company might not announce plans to release lead-free product. One might be the perception that if an announcement is made and the product fails the qualification tests, then that company has failed. Another might be trying to maintain a competitive advantage to companies producing similar product. The most likely reason is these companies do not want the market to drive the legislation.
A company might not mind producing lead-free product on a "onesy, twosy" basis to match other product in the field, but that does not mean they want to be required to eliminate lead from their products by a set date. Yet with the activities over the past year, this issue has already gained enough attention to possibly drive the WEEE Directive.
So, with all that is happening, one thing is certain: Lead-free electronics is inevitable. It is up to you now. You can either research the issue and the alternatives or bury your head in the sand and hope it all goes away.
Hint: The industry buried its head in the sand in the early 1990s. Look how far that got it.
CHRIS JORGENSEN may be contacted at the IPC - Association Connecting Electronics Industries, 2215 Sanders Road, Northbrook, IL 60062-6135; (847) 509-9700; Fax: (847) 509-9798; E-mail: ChristopherJorgensen@ipc.org.