Manufacturers in aerospace, defense and other industries exempt from RoHS rules may find themselves shifting to compliant products like it or not. Even if their suppliers continue to produce non-compliant parts – and that’s not a given – they may find their contract manufacturers refusing to run both compliant and non-compliant processes. Contract manufacturers operate under thin margins, typically 1 percent. These companies have quietly started to admit they canR... (more) [Read more…]

Most of the focus of RoHS-readiness has been on component suppliers. If the suppliers are RoHS compliant, the whole industry is compliant, right? Apparently not. Distribution executives have lately complained that some of the RoHS laggards are OEMs. A number of major and minor manufacturers will be scrambling this spring to get their products RoHS compliant. The July 1, 2006 RoHS deadline includes all product in stock in Europe on that day. That means most companies will have to start... (more) [Read more…]

Chicago-based distributor, Newark InOne has introduced a quality assurance policy to help customers reduce risks associated with the RoHS directive. The program comes in response to statements from United Kingdom (UK) RoHS enforcer agency, the National Weights and Measures Laboratory. The agency recently noted that producers shipping product to the UK after the RoHS deadline of July 1, 2006 will need to show more than certificates of compliance from the su... (more) [Read more…]

China’s recently announced law banning the six hazardous materials included in the European Union’s (EU) RoHS legislation will apparently be delayed until January 1, 2007. Originally the law was set to go into effect on the RoHS deadline of July 1, 2006. The delay is apparently tied to the late arrival of the final draft of “The Administration on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products,” which is expected to be released in January. I... (more) [Read more…]

In his paper entitled, “Green Compliance: Yes, It’s a Competitive Advantage,” Eric Karofsky, analyst at ARM Research, quotes former GE VP in the Wall Street Journal saying, “Law and regulation, ironically, can be market enhancing because then all regulated entities face the same obligations under the law and the smartest corporations will find a way to comply completely with imagination and less cost.” Karofsky agrees, citing several examples of companies... (more) [Read more…]

Irish retailer, Boots Retail has become the first company in the European Union to be prosecuted for violating the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulation. The retailer pleaded guilty to charges brought against the company by the UK Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The case was argued in Wexford District Court in Ireland. The court imposed a fine of 1,200 pounds on Boots, while also awarding 6,865 to the EPA to cover the agency’s prosecution. Bo... (more) [Read more…]

Component manufacturers have been expressing concerns that the materials declaration their OEM and contract manufacturing (CM) customers request may offer a peek into proprietary information. At a recent roundtable meeting held by the National Electronic Distributors Association, component suppliers voiced reservations about offering complete data. Yet, even as these concerns surfaced, suppliers acknowledge they are furiously scrambling to get material composition to their nervous cus... (more) [Read more…]

Comments by an engineer from printed-circuit-board (PCB) manufacturer, Exception PCB, suggest that replacing a leaded PCB with a RoHS compliant version is not enough to produce an effective and compliance product. “While a designer may be right to tick the ‘compliance required’ box on his submitted drawings, we are aware of instances where adopting the letter of the law and blindly adopting lead-free solders in isolation would be product suicide,” says Andy Hughes, a t... (more) [Read more…]

The Lead-Free Zone at Design News has launched a RoHS Forum to discuss environmental compliance issues: Click here to join. The forum will cover these topics: New legislation affecting electronic products – that includes compliance regulations from other countries as well as individual U.S. states. Component availability. We’ll discuss the availability of both leaded and lea... (more) [Read more…]

According to a survey conducted by Singapore-based Global Sources, 93 percent of electronics manufacturers in Asia expect to comply with the RoHS directive by its July 1, 2006 deadline. The survey quizzed 359 manufacturers in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Tong and South Korea. The companies surveyed currently export or plan to export electronic products to the European Union (EU). The report notes that 51 percent of surveyed comp... (more) [Read more…]

Getting ready for the July 1, 2006 RoHS deadline alone is not enough to meet environmental compliance demands, says Mike Kirschner, president of Design Chain Associates in San Francisco. Kirschner believes companies need to revamp their business processes to remain environmentally compliant. Here are some areas where companies need to restructure in order to meet compliance requirements going forward. Revamp design processes, including the component selection proces... (more) [Read more…]

As expected, the California legislature is getting ready to look at laws banning hazardous materials in electronic products. While the state has already enacted waste recycling laws governing electronic products, this is the first proposed law that outright bans toxic materials in consumer electronic products. The bill unveiled last week by Assembly Member Lori Saldana, a Democrat from San Diego, applies to any electronic or battery-power device. Hazardous substances will have to be p... (more) [Read more…]

The CEO of one of the major global contract manufacturers says electronics manufacturers will have to break out the checkbook to comply with the July 1, 2006 RoHS deadline. In an article in Electronic Business – a sister publication to Design News – Celestica CEO Steve Delaney says, “The industry-wide affects of RoHS include the increased cost of equipment, trai... (more) [Read more…]

European Union states have approved five new exemptions to the RoHS directive on February 15. The exemptions won’t be official until they are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, but it’s very close. The new exemptions include the following: Lead in linear incandescent lamps with silicate coated tubes. Lead halide as radiant agent in High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps used for professional reprography applications.... (more) [Read more…]

The High-Reliability RoHS Task Force at the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) has published recommendation for the lead-free manufacturing of complex, thermally challenging electronic assemblies. The recommendations – which focus primarily on thermal requirements for components, laminate and PWB materials and equipment – are intended to help ensure product reliability. Most high-reliability products are exempt from RoHS lead-free regulations, but t... (more) [Read more…]

EMA Design Automation, which provides electronic design automation, as teamed with Ageus solutions, a firm that helps companies solve compliance issues, to offer RoHS and WEEE compliance services that begin with the design process. The solution lets product development teams record, manage and report RoHS and WEEE data beginning at the design stage. “Aligning forces with Ageus allows us to expand our engineering data management solution to cover the entire manufactured product, which su... (more) [Read more…]

Now that RoHS is nearing its July 1 deadline, the new target for the European Union (EU) is batteries. EU member states are presently in discussions on the details of a battery directive. They’re expected to finalize restrictions this summer. Member states will then have two years to implement the directive’s rules. The battery directive will resemble the WEEE take-back laws. Those producing batteries or incorporating batteries into their products will be responsible for t... (more) [Read more…]

Every week brings new RoHS-compliance offerings from vendors serving the electronics industry. New Momentum, a predictive market intelligence software company in San Clemente, Calif. has just introduced a product called RainMaker 1000. The software offers help in three areas for electronics manufacturers: supply chain management, financial services and corporate services. The kicker is that environmental compliance has become a fixed part of these services. Under supply chain manageme... (more) [Read more…]

In talking with a major components distributor we learned of bumps on the road to the July 1 RoHS deadline. For one, OEMs are starting to ask whether the deadline will be strictly enforced. Apparently, plenty of companies know their products won’t be sufficiently compliant by the deadline. Some say their products won’t be compliant until November. In some cases, the products will be compliant but manufacturers won’t be able to easily prove their compliance. OEMs are ... (more) [Read more…]

More than a year ago, distributors started to predict that non-compliant components would begin to dry up as component suppliers shifted to mostly lead-free production. This week may have seen the beginning of that trend. Some officials at Avnet Inc, a large components distributor, report the beginning of the tightening of the non-compliant parts supply. The executives are reporting price increases for non-compliant inventory. Lead times are stretching out as well. The end-of-life not... (more) [Read more…]

A venture fund created by an internet investment firm is targeting companies that develop green technology. Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers made its name with early investments in net companies such as Netscape, Amazon and Google. The company is now betting on green technology. This year the company will set aside $100 million of its $600 investment pool for a fund favoring companies that develop technology that helps provide cleaner energy, transportation, air and water. The $1... (more) [Read more…]

Design Chain Associates (DCA), a San Francisco consulting firm, has announced it has engaged a translation service to translate China’s RoHS-related “Marking and Maximum Concentration Value” draft standards into English. The firm has reviewed the translated documents for consistency with the promulgated Chinese law as well as the European Union’s RoHS directive and annotated the document appropriately. The Chinese government has declined to officially translate... (more) [Read more…]

The industries exempt from RoHS – aerospace, defense and medical equipment – continue to struggle with their need mitigate tin whisker formation in lead-free components. As more and more component manufacturers discontinue their leaded versions, the exempt industries are looking for ways to switch to lead-free parts without risking tin whiskers growth and product failure. This year, the Surface Mount Technology Association will present a series of workshops on the topic of ... [Read more…]

A recent article in Design News sister publication, the UK-based Electronics Weekly, reports that business among contract manufacturers has increased in the past six months as companies prepare to deliver RoHS-compliant product into Europe before the July 1 RoHS deadline. Editor Richard Wilson quotes a number of marketing executives who are seeing a rush to get complian... (more) [Read more…]

We found some very good comments on the question of lead-free solders and finishes from Joe Fjelstad on the Listserv LEADFREE page. Fjelstad makes a great case against going lead-free. Fjelstad’s comments: The point of concern and the lead-free movement was predicated in concernof the poisoning of children, especially the very young, in early,formative y... (more) [Read more…]