SEMI issues alert on China RoHS

The industry group, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), has issued an alert advising its members they will need to provide “environmental labels and supporting self-declared information in Chinese” in order to comply with requirements of China RoHS. The alert notes that China RoHS is unlike the European Union’s (EU) RoHS directive in numerous key details and asks members to “not assume your compliance with, or exclusion from, EU RoHS will result in compliance with or exclusion from China RoHS.”

The alert explains that labeling and providing self-declared information on electronic products is just the first stage of China’s directive. The second stage will be prompted by a catalog that will list all of the products included in the directive. The catalog has not yet been released, nor have any dates been set for the initial release of the catalog. The alert also notes that China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) “has said not to expect exemptions from the catalog, unlike those included in the EU RoHS.”

For further information, SEMI asks its members to go to http://www.semi.org/ehs and click on China RoHS. SEMI also encourages its members to participate with China’s MII. SEMI will provide information on contacting the MII to join its standards working group.

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