Aimed at accelerating the use of lead-free packages and stimu-lating the further development of these technologies, Infineon, Philips and STMicroelectronics unveiled their proposal for the first standard for defining and evaluating lead-free semicon-ductors. Europe’s largest manufacturers show an encouraging commitment towards the elimination of lead (Pb) in electronics to improve environmental protection in recycling or disposalprocesses.
The companies have developed a norm which provides a common definition of lead-free and assesses factors such as solderability and reliability of alternative materials. Lead is the critical and toxic constituent of solder, and it is widely used in packaging as a finish on the leads, as die attach material and for ball grid arrays (BGA). One of the major barriers against eliminating the use of lead has been a lack of internationally agreed principles and methodologies for evaluating the quality and reliability of alternatives. Lead-tin alloy has been used for many decades, and established procedures are used worldwide to evaluate its quality and long-term reliability. “To accelerate the transition to lead-free technology, the electronics industry needs a common approach to quantifying solderability, heat resistance and other issues that affect reliability”, underlines Carlo Cognetti, VP package development at STMicroelectronics.
“At present, there is not even an internationally agreed definition of the maximum amount of lead that can be allowed in a lead-free component or process,” found Wolfgang Bloch, head of environment protection and safety management at Infineon. “The market is confused because there are no rules so far for evaluating alternative technologies. What we are doing is proposing some key ground rules that will help accelerate progress. Our initiative shows the inevitable transition to ‘green’ assembly on a global scale.”
“Europe has taken the lead in proposing the world’s first legislation to eliminate lead from electronic equipment”, resumes Leo Klerks, environmental officer at Philips Semiconductors. “Our interest in using lead-free soldering technologies has partly been fuelled by legislative restrictions from the European Commission. Effective from 2006, materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium and others will be forbidden in electrical and electronic devices.” These companies will be able to introduce their lead-free devices in advance to the legislative deadlines. Fully qualified alternatives will reportedly be available by the end of this year. The proposal contains an upper limit for lead-free components of 0.1%, related to the individual material, not to the whole package. This lead-free understanding, based on in-sight, will give their clientsassess to ”green” technology soon. (gbw)
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