News Release from: SMART Group
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 6 March 2006
Lead-free seminar draws 160 delegates
The SMART Group's 8th annual lead-free seminar, question time and exhibition was held in February at Wycombe Football Club Conference Centre, UK.
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The SMART Group's 8th annual lead-free seminar, question time and exhibition was held in February at Wycombe Football Club Conference Centre, UK. This event was attended by 160 delegates who appreciated a wide ranging seminar of lead-free topics, a lively debate and surprising results from a survey conducted on the day. The most intriguing paper of the day was from Steve Brown, Global Product Manager - Wave Chemistry, Cookson Electronics, who accepted the poison chalice of speaking on the solder patent issue, the subject that many other speakers had refused.
Brown talked about patent protected lead-free alloys and the impact on the user.
The paper entitled 'Complying with international patent obligations' covered intellectual property considerations, lead-free alloy patents and the typical cost of the royalty payment.
Fitting in very nicely was another materials presentation 'IPC-SPVC: comparison of SAC solder compositions'.
Steve Dowds, Global Product Manager, Multicore Solder Products - Henkel, presented this on behalf of the IPC Solder Product Value Council, whose goal was to reduce the confusion regarding alloy choice and is devoted to achieving a worldwide consensus on the issue.
This 3-year $1 million reliability test programme looked at the impact of lead-free implementation on solder selection.
The SAC alloy types tested were 96.5/3.0/0.5 tin/silver/copper, 95.5/3.8/0.7 tin/silver/copper and 95.5/4.0/0.5 tin/silver/copper.
Solectron and Flextronics were involved in the project.
The SPVC 96.5/3.0/0.5 Sn/Ag/Cu recommendation becomes the commodity alloy for Pb-free applications.
Other key conclusions: standard FR4 laminate can be used, and voiding (at least in this study) had no impact on reliability.
The day kicked off with 'Routes to RoHS compliance' with Neil Stanton, BSI Product Services, who summarised that companies should establish policy and processing, communicate with suppliers, find evidence and keep on file, only use suppliers that they have confidence in, test where appropriate, communicate with customers, review the process frequently and keep up-to-date with new RoHS information.
In 'RoHS readiness - progress report on suppliers and customers', Alan Lund, Product Compliance Manager - RS Components, outlined why RoHS is as much a logistical issue as a technical one and concluded that component availability is key to achieving RoHs compliance.
Nigel Burtt, Production Engineering Manager, Dolby Laboratories, European HQ, explained what RoHS means to Dolby.
This was an excellent and interesting overview from a user.
The company very early set up a RoHS/WEEE project team to implement the production changeover to RoHS compliant products.
Burtt humorously complained about the pain of part numbers and gave Dolby's solution.
Four shorter presentations gave suppliers the opportunity to update on equipment and nitrogen technology for lead-free: 'Update of lead-free wave soldering' and 'Selective Soldering', by Alistair Watson SEHO; 'Reliable and reproducible vapour phase for lead-free', by Joachim Krause, IBL Germany; and 'Advantages of nitrogen for lead-free', by Paul Stratton, BOC.
Abigail Cottrell, Eco-Design and Product Policy at the Department of Trade and Industry gave the latest update on legislation in her presentation 'RoHS - 5 months to implementation'.
As well as updates on the materials not to be included from 1st July 2006, the agreed exemptions and those pending, Cottrell informed the audience that there is now an informal network of EU RoHS enforcement bodies to ensure a uniform EU approach.
The day concluded with Dr Paul Cusack of Soldertec Global-Tin Technology taking a practical look at 'Analytical test protocols for ensuring compliance with the EU RoHS Directive'.
The two 'question time' sessions, with all the day's presenters, were lively and informative.
A survey was conducted by the SMART Group at the seminar, and the majority of questionnaires returned showed that industry will either not be ready or is uncertain that it will meet the looming compliance date.
Also a high number of companies believe they are exempt from the directive.
The greatest challenges to being compliant by 1st July were listed as: nonavailability of lead-free components; compliance issues; cost of stock to support spares; reliability; moisture sensitive devices; rework and repair.
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