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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Companies Work to Meet Environmental Regulations

It’s pronounced Row-Haas and it’s causing a headache for the electronics industry. RoHS, or Reduction of Hazardous Substances, went into effect July 1 and requires electrical equipment and components sold in Europe be free of lead and five other toxic substances. Companies large and small in the San Fernando Valley have made adjustments to ensure their products and parts coming from suppliers meet the standard. While specific dollar figures are sketchy, industry-wide compliance may reach into the billions. Overseas sub-contractors for semiconductor supplier Semtech Corp. invested substantial amounts of money on developing new materials to coat semiconductors and for the equipment to do the work. “We’ve had to throw an enormous amount of engineering resources and qualification resources at it as well for all these new materials,” said Kevin Caffey, vice president of quality and reliability for the Camarillo-based company. Across the Valley in Van Nuys, Scott Alyn of Electronic Source Co., a printed circuit board manufacturer, invested $60,000 for a new wave soldering machine to make RoHS compliant product. Another drawback is the space taken up to segregate the lead-free product from circuit boards using lead solder. “It’s a just another part of the business that continually evolves,” Alyn said with a tone of resignation in his voice. The European Union adopted the restriction in 2003 and provided for a three-year period for companies to comply. The directive orders no lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, and two flame retardants be used in new electronic equipment manufactured or sold in the European Union. Some of the products include large and small household appliances, some information technology and telecommunications equipment, consumer products, lighting, and electronic and electrical tools. Exempt products include those used for military and national security purposes, medical devices, monitoring and control instruments, switching and signaling equipment, and network management for telecommunications. The EU standards are the start of a spreading trend. In January, California begins enforcement of the Electronic Waste Recycling Act and its provision banning four hazardous substances from devices using cathode ray tubes or liquid crystal displays, such as televisions and computer monitors. Restrictions similar to those in Europe are being readied for China and Korea. Meeting the European standards is a “Herculean task,” said Richard Crowe, director of the California Circuits Association, a trade group for circuit board makers. While much of the industry has a handle on how to switch over to make RoHS-compliant product, the effectiveness of new alloys for solder components remains unknown. “My personal observation is there is going to be failure,” Crowe said. “That’s part of the learning curve the industry is going to climb in order to do this correctly.” At Power-One the search for a replacement solder containing no lead began three years ago. Eighteen months ago, the company began its effort to make sure the 25,000 components going into its power conversion products met the European standard. As it’s the seller who has the burden to meet the standard, companies like Power-One are watchful of what suppliers give them, asking for certification and precise information of what it is in their parts. In a few instances, the Camarillo company didn’t feel comfortable with parts supplied from overseas and in turn had them lab-tested in the U.S., said Fred Heath, Power-One’s RoHS marketing manager. “In turn, some of our customers are asking for a complete break down of not only the six banned substances but everything that’s in them,” Heath said. Fulcrum Microsystems found itself in an advantageous position at the release of the EU directive. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Calabasas, the interconnect device supplier for the computing and networking industries was in its product design phase and able to incorporate the European standard, said its Vice President of Operations Cozette Darby. “The vendors we have worked with have been outstanding in helping us achieve compliance,” Darby said. At Semtech, a pure mat tin and nickel/palladium/gold plating or coating replaced the lead-based plating applied to the leads on a semiconductor. The new plating material was engineered, qualified and tested and then new equipment installed to do the work on a mass scale, Caffey said. “A plating bath for a sub-contractor is a very expensive piece of equipment,” Caffey said. “It’s a plating line that is typically 100-feet long and costs millions of dollars per unit. Every sub-contractor we work with had to put these lines in.” Even the work of board mount shops changed as the specialized platings require a higher temperature to bond them to boards found in electronic equipment. “That’s why we used tin lead – it’s a low-temperature solder,” Caffey said. There is no agreement in the electronics manufacturing industry on the merits of the new standard and whether they will do any good in making it easier to recycle electronic products and reducing the risk of exposing workers to lead and other hazardous substances. The CCA’s Crowe calls the standards very political and questions whether the benefits are worth the cost to manufacturers. Alyn, of Electronic Source Co., foresees a day when most if not all electrical components are lead-free and predicts aerospace and military customers will be the most affected by that change. “They will need to maintain a leaded process because it’s more reliable and they will be in trouble because they won’t find leaded components,” Alyn said. Fulcrum Microsystems fully supports the new standard. “From our perspective it’s ethically the right thing to do and we’re not viewing it as a negative,” Darby said.

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