Made By Monkeys

It's the ultimate Catch-22 for design engineers: Comply with RoHS and risk the long-term reliability of their products in some cases. Or break the law.

 

Some design engineers in the U.K. have privately admitted to me that their designs currently are not in compliance with RoHS regulations, for fear that lead-free alternatives may lead to lower quality and premature failure of their products in the field.

 

One engineer, whose company makes LED lighting products, says that his engineering team initially investigated alternative lead-free solders, rejecting them one-by-one because of defects. Given that the company's products are used outdoors and the specs call for extremely high reliability and a long life expectancy, they applied for an exemption before RoHS regulations went into effect.

Gary Nevison, director of legislation and environmental affairs for Newark and Farnell, is sharply critical of a ruling to delete a ROHS exemption for Decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE), a popular flame retardant used in certain types of plastic used in connectors, enclosures, wiring, and other electronic equipment.

The timetable is a tad, shall we say, aggressive:

The exemption is scheduled to end on June 30th, and Nevison argues on EDN's Critical Links blog that few manufacturers will be to meet this tight deadline:

Maybe when monkeys fly.

"This will be a significant issue for component suppliers as some of their customers will no longer accept plastics with DecaBDE, due to the timescale from buying parts to putting finished products on the market. It will also be a significant problem for manufacturers who have stocks of parts containing DecaBDE that cannot be used in ROHS compliant equipment that is put onto the EU market from July 1, 2008."

Many Department of Defense programs will not go lead-free because of uncertainties and the risks associated with the current science and materials, reports Military and Aerospace Electronics in an article titled "Lead-free issues continue to plague mil-aero market, says DMEA engineer."

Speaking at the Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum in San Diego in March that engineer, Vance Anderson with the Defense Microelectronics Activity in Sacramento, CA, described the effect of the lead free regulation on the military procurement process for COTS.

(COTS stands for commercial-off-the-shelf-products, which the DOD depends on because they are cheap and reliable. Problem is, most COTS parts have gone lead-free. And though military contractors can opt for high-rel military parts, they are costly -- as much as 10X as COTS parts.)

And therein the dilemma lies:

"Many DoD programs will not go lead-free because of uncertainties and the risks associated with the current science and materials. "There are failures, but we're not always hearing about it; most of the reporting is coming from government bodies. But believe me," Anderson says, "it is hitting all the major primes right now, very hard." The automotive, medical, and telecommunications markets are not immune, and have also experienced the same failures. Such failures are common, but not often revealed, perhaps due to stockholder pressures."

Sister publication Design News reports in its Lead Free Zone Blog that The Irish retailer, Boots, has the dubious honor of becoming the first company in the EU to prosecuted for violating the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which aims to divert electronic devices away from landfills:

"The retailer pleaded guilty to charges brought against the company by the UK Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Boots officials admitted the company failed to post a notice in their shops alerting customers that the prices of electronic products include a contribution to a producer recycling fund that ensures old electrical and electronic products are collected and recycled appropriately. Boots also failed to include a notice in a newspaper ad that a contribution is made to the fund from add-on’s to the retail price. Notices in shops and in advertising is required by WEEE."