Beware of RoHS

[N1LAF]

Ever heard of RoHS? Know what it means? Implications?

RoHS - Removal of Hazardous Substance, as applied to soldering, it means lead free. The European Union, China, I think India, and other countries has adopted it. Not the US. The new soldering technique is more problematic - Failures galore.

I spoke to an engineering manager who told me that 13 of 40 pieces (circuit boards) was dead on arrival. These boards had to be tested before shipping, and now dead.

The biggest problems with tin free soldering is the creation of 'tin whiskers', smaller than hair strands of tin from the surface during and after soldering. A strange phenomena has been occurring, tin whiskers grow after the soldering process. The problem with tin whiskers is that they can touch adjacent connections - short or disable, and thus more junk is created. Another sign of tin whiskers is sudden death of electronic equipment. Think of that when you buy your next Asian made radio - opt for the extended warranty.

[N2NH]

Thanks for the information. Man I'm glad I got what I got when I got it.

I'll recap the HW-8s & 9 from now until doomsday rather than part with them. I guess that means that MFJ now makes the best quality radio on the market.
;)

I pronounce RoHS "Rose". many others pronounce it "Rojas". But there ain't a "j" in there.

Anyway, RoHS is constantly morphing as to what it means. Actually, lead is the least of the worries of RoHS, and it mainly targets Mercury, Cadmium (So NiCad Batteries are banned), Hexavalent chromium (chromium xxx or Cr6+), Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE).

Tin whiskering is a problem with going lead free. RoHS will allow for a rating of RoHS 5/6 for continuing to use lead solder and removing the other banned substances. With our technology getting smaller all the time and the pitch of the leads getting ever so much closer, tin whiskering is a massive problem in the industry.

There can be a difference between "lead free" and RoHS compliance. So these two terms should not be confused. Having a "lead free" product does not ensure that you have a "RoHS compliant" product and vice versa.

Kyocera stance:


We are developing lead-free products in order to comply with RoHS directives taking effect on July 1, 2006. We firstly in the industry established the mass production line using the tin-copper dual-layer plating that mitigates whisker formation as well as the line using gold plating and tin plating as lead-free plating. (Mass production started on January in 2004.) With tin-copper dual-layer plating, external stress can be dispersed and alleviated in order to mitigate the whisker formation due to the structure of two types of tin-copper plating, matte type and semi-bright one.

We have many connectors and processes that are within the lead free realm and yet do not exhibit the tin whiskering effects that competitors are plagued with.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

Rojas, Spanish for red.
In Spanish, J sounds like H.
The reason for Rojas is 2 fold.
First off, it sounds right, RoHS, and, the labels with a material change order have a red label.
Also, it is lead that is removed, not tin.
And, the EU has already exempted all military and medical equipment, in part due to the very high failure rates.
It looks like some long life equipment will also be exempted, such as electric meters and the like.
Most consumer electronics operating at low voltages, MP3 players and cellphones have little or no issues, but it is not known if voltage, or current, is a factor.
What is known is that tin whiskers can form even after power is removed, but normally do not form if power was never applied.
Perhaps this may be the answer to Einstein theory of residual charge.
If that is correct, the "fabric" of space and time understanding will be one step closer to giving up its secrets.
One failure, one success.

[n2ize]

My gosh... now the big thing is to be PBB free. I am not even PCB free. Most of my old boatanchors contain PCB filled condensers. And I have quite a few spares. Matter of fact, looking across the room I can see at least 2 Aerovox PCB Oil condensers and a nice strapping Cornell-Dubilier Dykanol filled condenser.

For non-Old-timers condenser = capacitor. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

PoHS out there now.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/electronics-legislation/2008/07/norwegian-pohs-update.html


In May 2007 the Norwegian Control Authority (SFT) opened up to stakeholder consultation a proposal that recommended a ban on 18 hazardous substances in consumer products, the so called PoHS, or Prohibition of Hazardous Substances.

This is only for Norway so far, but the big restriction, or should I say "prohibition" will be with gallium arsenide (GaAs) meaning low noise GaAs FETs may be on their way out the door.

All of a sudden, banning lead was not that big of a deal.

[N3ATS]

As long as they don't take away my Potassium Perchlorate! :dance

[M0GLO]

Hello,

That was my fault.
I was talking to my handlers in SA about our new call sign when a helicopter flew past (it was black I think) and I think they misunderstood me. I said something about buying Humvee's for feild day and they must have thought I said ban gallium arsenide.

Sorry.

[HUGH]

Beryllium Oxide was probably the nastiest component of power semiconductors, I presume that's banned?

So, looking at consumer, and many industrial and commercial products, which are ROHS ("ross") compliant, will they be life-expired before any possibility of tin-whisker growth and what sort of lifetime would the consumer expect versus what the manufacturer assumes? This is all assuming the components haven't fallen off due to inadequate soldering.

Personally I like to think all this electronic stuff, including radio equipment, will last at least 15 to 20 years. None of my radios are less than 15 years old and we had a TV that was sold on, in good working order, after 17 years. The home microwave (admittedly I have replaced a couple of things) is 23 years old and used every day.

[N1LAF]

The latest is that tin whiskers have been known to grow long after the solder process. On a sharp shock incident, a tin whisker my shift and touch an adjacent contact. Sporadic problems or sudden death usually results

[WB2WIK]

I disagree with most of this. Being in the electronic manufacturing business, our yields have never been higher than they are today (under RoHS directives).

Every cell phone manufactured in the last 2-1/2 years contains unleaded solders and thousands of microscopic components. Are they failing more often than before? I doubt it. Those are made by the "millions," not the thousands. Ditto goes for television sets, and pretty much everything else.

Batteries are exempt from the directive; they just need to be marked as "non recyclable" or such under the WEEE directive.

I think some misinformation is here. Military electronic equipment and apparatus is exempt because military stuff has always been exempt from consumer standards. You can't sell electronic apparatus without a UL60950/EN60950 product safety declaration and actual license from an approved NRTL, but the military doesn't need to go through any of that. You can't sell electronic apparatus (containing any oscillators or signal sources) without an FCC Part 15 declaration, either, but the military doesn't need to go through any of that, either. You can't import goods into the EU without a CE declaration, but the military's exempt from that one, too. Many reasons for this, but a very good one is that it takes several years to qualify military equipment, especially complex electronic apparatus, and there hasn't been nearly enough time to qualify a new process. If everyone started this back in 2006, they might be done by 2016. Or might not. Most stuff the military's using today was designed a decade or more ago -- not because they're stupid, just because it takes that long to get stuff qualified.

Same goes for medical equipment. The conformity/compatibility/licensing process is a long and complex one and there just hasn't been enough time to qualify and certify equipment built under the new directives. They'll get there -- probably the middle of the next decade.

The "problem" is not that the new process has proven less reliable. The problem is, it hasn't even been tried yet, in most cases.

We build the optical information processors for the Global Hawk surveillance aircraft (this is not a secret, such governement contract awards are public information). It's stuff that was all designed in the mid-1990s and has just gone into production now. The computers are VME bus, which by today's standards is completely obsolete. But it is what it is, nobody has ten years to re-qualify a new approach.

WB2WIK/6

Beryllium Oxide was probably the nastiest component of power semiconductors, I presume that's banned?

So, looking at consumer, and many industrial and commercial products, which are ROHS ("ross") compliant, will they be life-expired before any possibility of tin-whisker growth and what sort of lifetime would the consumer expect versus what the manufacturer assumes? This is all assuming the components haven't fallen off due to inadequate soldering.

Personally I like to think all this electronic stuff, including radio equipment, will last at least 15 to 20 years. None of my radios are less than 15 years old and we had a TV that was sold on, in good working order, after 17 years. The home microwave (admittedly I have replaced a couple of things) is 23 years old and used every day.
The only metals I can find in PoHS are arsenic and arsenic compounds, lead and lead compounds, and cadmium and cadmium compounds. But I have no idea why they don't attack Beryllium.

Do you think politics has anything to do with it?


Edit: The issue really isn't with the age of the product alone, but the age of the product coupled with the pitch of the connector pins. If you have a pitch of 0.3mm or 0.25mm, there is a great chance that if you use our competitors connectors, you will have problems. But at Kyocera, we take this subject seriously and maintain that our connectors will not tin whisker.

You decide if you like the tin whiskers or not.

[WB2WIK]

Beryllium Oxide was probably the nastiest component of power semiconductors, I presume that's banned?

So, looking at consumer, and many industrial and commercial products, which are ROHS ("ross") compliant, will they be life-expired before any possibility of tin-whisker growth and what sort of lifetime would the consumer expect versus what the manufacturer assumes? This is all assuming the components haven't fallen off due to inadequate soldering.

Personally I like to think all this electronic stuff, including radio equipment, will last at least 15 to 20 years. None of my radios are less than 15 years old and we had a TV that was sold on, in good working order, after 17 years. The home microwave (admittedly I have replaced a couple of things) is 23 years old and used every day.
The only metals I can find in PoHS are arsenic and arsenic compounds, lead and lead compounds, and cadmium and cadmium compounds. But I have no idea why they don't attack Beryllium.

Do you think politics has anything to do with it?

::I doubt it. It's because Beryllium by itself isn't unsafe to handle. In fact, BeCu (beryllium-copper alloy) is used all over the place in electronics, and is the element material used in SteppIR beams. That's not unsafe, either.

The toxicity comes in when you make BeO (beryllium oxide) and then crush it into a powder or dust, and ingest that somehow. If it's powderized, you can breathe it in and that is toxic. The answer is, "don't do that." Normally BeO is a fired ceramic and is no more likely to turn to powder than your kitchen counter or anything else made of fired ceramics. BeO in a jelled suspension is non-toxic and has been used for decades as thermal grease (thermally conductive heatsink compound). It's also the substrate material for most isolated power semiconductors and hybrids, and has hundreds of other applications. We use it all the time with no precautions because it's very stable.

I wouldn't intentionally hit the material with a hammer and then snort the powder like cocaine. But that's about the only way it will hurt you.

WB2WIK/6

[N1LAF]

We do prohibit the use of beryllium oxide because it is very toxic.

http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/BE/beryllium_oxide.html

http://www.lycos.com/info/beryllium--be ... oxide.html (http://www.lycos.com/info/beryllium--beryllium-oxide.html)

[N1LAF]

No misinformation here. This topic is hot in my line of work, where reliability is premium, and must survive shock without tin whisker caused event. The new problem now is the growth of tin whiskers AFTER manufacturing.

[n2ize]

RoHS sounds like a lot of garbage to me. What happened to making things the old way and using common sense.