Below are two recent posts on TechNet, the user forum for manufacturing and design engineers sponsored by the IPC - Association Connecting Electronics Industries. They were posted by the President of an electronic test equipment company in New Hampshire. There have been many posts, many threads, about the numerous process and reliability problems caused by the RoHS ban on lead in solder. The two below are the most eloquent.
The first post cites 15 counts against lead-free solder, some actual documented failures, some links to further documentation. Then, the poster demands that the EU revoke the lead ban before it causes a catastrophe more serious than a pacemaker or satellite failure. I wish.
But it won't work, for three reasons. The lesser reason is all the red faces, on all those electronic industry figures who betrayed the industry's interests for their own opportunistic reasons. They, not politicians or environmentalists, made RoHS happen by colluding with the "enemy." But, at this point in time, we don't need recriminations. We need to march together to a better future.
The second reason is all the effort to reverse production processes, materials, supply chains. The disruption in the midst of a depression would not be tolerated.
The third and decisive reason why it's not in the cards for the RoHS lead in solder ban to be reversed is the tsunami of litigation an admission of lead-free culpability would invoke. We don't need that either, unless one is a lawyer.
Let's outfox the solder and tin industries!
I hope you are sitting down, since I am going to tell you how to get rid of solder. The PCBs of today combine two functions: They support the components and they provide the interconnection traces. Suppose we separate those functions into two platforms. One would just hold the picked and placed components with leads accessible from the top. The other platform would provide the dense traces--no components in the way. The third dimension would join component leads to traces-laser drilled microvias, copper-plated, all very reliable, proven processes. It could be a parallel manufacturing configuration, drastically cutting cycle time. The original concept is explained at www.verdantelectronics.com by Joseph Fjelstad.
Now it's Bob Landman's turn. He is with H&L Instruments, LLC, and had the following to say about the issue of lead-free electronics. Landman posted his comments on Technet on January 25, 2010.
POST 1
Here's a partial list (below) of problems ignored by the EU and major manufacturers as they have switched to lead-free manufacturing to comply with the EU lead ban.
PREFACE
The waivers for defense and high reliability products are essentially useless (unless one sends parts to a replater to dip them in molten lead) as the major component vendors have rushed to embrace lead-free manufacturing. They have, in many cases, mixed their lead and lead-free parts by using the same part numbers for both. They have refused to make available to RoHS exempt industries lead bearing platings on components.
1) Microsoft's XBOX as has been widely discussed on this and other forums.
2) Increased number of failures in recently purchased PC products.
3) Subject matter experts of published environmental tests show increased amounts of failures in lead-free manufacturing (mechanical connection failures) including parts popping off boards, voids in BGA balls, etc. Manufacturers continue to state lead-free manufacturing is "OK," "No problems found."
4) Conformal coatings mitigate the growth of tin whiskers (and not using lead in solder guarantees that whiskers will grow), yet commercial product manufacturers (including a major telecom product provider who shall remain nameless) told me and several others on a teleconference that I attended on behalf of the Dept of Homeland Security, that "the selling price of the products cannot bear the cost adder of conformal coating."
5) Swatch, the watch company, gets a waiver to use lead as millions of their watches fail due to tin whisker shorts on crystal oscillator.
6) FDA forced Medtronic to recall their implanted cardiac defibrillators (from patients bodies) when whiskers shorted the devices (http://www.fda.gov/ora/inspect_ref/itg/itg42.html).
7) A major Ethernet switch maker has senior field service personnel who have not been told of the potential for tin whisker growth so when failures happen, boards are simply replaced. Reason given is that "Customers pay for service contracts so who cares what the reason is that they fail so long as we repair them quickly."
8) A major contract assembler states at a recent IEEE Reliability Society meeting that they see no problems with lead-free manufacturing yet. One of their customers said to me: "Of course they don't see the problems, we see them AFTER we ship the product."
9) All the whisker failures reported here at http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/failures/index.htm; plus I am advised by NASA that they have confidentiality agreements with many others who call in to report problems, which prevent them from listing the failures.
10) I was recently at a national meeting on lead-free manufacturing where it was admitted that on many warplane systems there are lead-free manufacturing problems, but the manufacturers refuse to go public with the information.
11) Anonymous (Terrestrial Application) - Field Failures First Observed Circa 2003: http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/anecdote/2003ckt_breaker/index.html.
12) Over 15,000 papers have been published on the subject of tin whiskers (http://www.dbicorporation.com/rohsbib.htm), yet to this day, no one can state why they grow or how to stop them without lead; how quickly they grow; and how long they will grow.
13) White paper by the AIA outlining the problems: www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/wp_leadfree_0208.pdf.
14) As was recently posted here by Denny Fritz:
A large amount of information has been accumulated in the Aerospace/Defense community about lead based versus lead-free solders/solder joints. A good place to start to tap this knowledge has recently been gathered at the Defense Acquisition University web site: https://acc.dau.mil/leadfree.
I will point out the second item on the list--the Lead-free Electronics "Manhattan Project" to compile the "best practices" for use of lead based or lead-free solder in harsh environments. Fifteen leading metallurgical scientists in the U.S. met for two weeks to compile this 350-page baseline. Since then, the same 15 met again in August to outline the required research to close the knowledge gaps between leaded and lead-free solder, particularly in harsh environments.
15) The AIA and others are proposing to the U.S. Dept of Defense a $95M project which will take three years and which will hopefully come up with solutions to the present problems with lead-free manufacturing.
The bottom line is, that until the problems outlined above are solved, if the EU does not want people to die from an increased amount of failures in transportation, electric power, medical devices, not to mention the waste and expense of filling landfills to overflowing with an increasing number of failed electronic products, the EU should immediately retract the RoHS ban on lead in manufacturing electronic assemblies and components and instead specify that at least 5 percent lead should be in all tin coatings and solders.
POST 2
Denying a problem exists does not make the problem disappear. NASA discovered that the hard way twice with the space shuttle.
What is bordering on being criminal behavior is to keep saying there are no problems with lead-free manufacturing, and not disclosing failures (not allowing NASA to report them) for fear of lawsuits and competitors pointing fingers.
We know how this story ends, of course the truth will eventually come out after the body count is high enough or the disaster is spectacular enough.
In one of the areas that my company sells products helps to protect utility workers and the public from explosions of transformers and circuit breakers. The need for our product dramatically intensifies after people die. Sad, but true.
This is human nature. Large companies self-insure. They do a calculation called "avoided cost." It may be less costly to pay off lawsuits if they occur (and, of course, by settling out of court, the record of the failure is hidden) rather than expense the upfront cost of fixing the problem before injury or death occurs.
Remember those tobacco executives who raised their hands at a congressional hearing swearing that smoking cigarettes was not addictive? They knew they were lying to Congress, but they also knew their jobs and their industry depended on those lies.
What has appeared to happen in this instance is that the major electronics manufacturers have stuck their necks very far out, committed to lead-free manufacturing so they could sell in the EU, assumed solutions would be found before the ban went into effect. When adequate solutions were not at hand, instead of going to the EU and demanding the ban be shelved until the problems were all solved, they kept quiet.
Component and solder and soldering equipment manufacturers were complicit. $40B is the estimated new sales of lead-free products due to the lead ban. A tidy profit for some, a misery for the others. iNEMI came up with a consensus standard that everyone could meet (so it seems) that calls for no more than six months of no whisker growth (no more than 50 microns). Almost everyone in industry (Asia and California also got on board and told the public that "all is well, we are green, and the products are fine").
No, things are not fine.
Bob Landman
H&L Instruments, LLC
Here are a few YouTube links that are interesting. Watch them in order:
1. http://tinyurl.com/yj7xhne
2. http://tinyurl.com/ygwnfvr
3. http://tinyurl.com/yzy88ev
4. http://tinyurl.com/yjjbltd
5. http://tinyurl.com/yhncfyc
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