| Whats New |
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| NEMI Lead-free
soldering report |
| The National Electronics Manufacturing
Initiative (NEMI) in the USA has recently published its
report on lead-free soldering. Based on work from 30 participating
organisations it has concluded that SnAgCu solders are
suitable replacements for SnPb for surface mount technology.
It is being used successfully in production and has performed
well in reliability testing. |
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| ERA is currently carrying out a survey
on lead-free soldering and this conclusion agrees with
the opinions of most European manufacturers who are developing
lead-free production. Although the NEMI conclusions are
factually correct, the situation is not a simple as this.
SnAgCu solder is quite different to traditional tin lead
solders and changes to equipment, manufacturing processes
and in many cases components will be needed, Significant
technical difficulties do exist and manufacturers will
need to understand these in order to produce reliable
and consistent products. This can be costly and time consuming
if expert advise is not sought at an early stage - Motorola
spent $1.5 million developing their first lead-free solder
mobile phones. |
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| ERA can provide technical assistance with
changing to lead-free soldering, assessing the quality
of products made using lead-free solders. |
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| Designing and Recycling Electrical and Electronic Equipment |
| A review of the conference and a further
article on lead-free solders are published in RE4view
or you can obtain the proceedings of the conference. |
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| Upcoming Events
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| Course - Changing to Lead Free Solders |
| Dates 12 May 2004 and 6 October 2004- venue Leatherhead |
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| The Restriction of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
directive will ban the sale within the EU of a wide variety
of electrical equipment containing tin-lead solders. This
course covers: |
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How the drive towards lead-free will affect you
What are the differences between tin-lead and lead-free
solders
What difficulties can occur and how to avoid these
Who is already using lead-free around the world |
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| Course - Design for the Environment (DfE)
for electronic and electrical equipment |
| Date 11 May 2004 - venue Leatherhead |
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| Design for the Environment techniques offer cost savings,
can pre-empt future legislation and demonstrate a "green"
image to customers. This course covers: |
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What Design for the Environment (DfE) is and how it
can help your business
How DfE is used
Techniques and ideas for DfE that could result in long
term cost savings
What others have done with DfE |
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Reliability and Failure Analysis News - Issue 4
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