Support
Sub-Info

Are you RoHS Compliant?

The impact that RoHS will have on engineering designs and product deployment could include:

  • RoHS may require a requalification of a design using the RoHS compliant parts
  • A design may have to be re-engineered to support the RoHS compliant parts
  • The different chemical makeup of RoHS parts may require an additional “learning curve” for PCB assembly houses to re-tool soldering processes

Additional links on RoHS:

Newsletter

News IconFor the latest news, and market breakthroughs from Finger Lakes Engineering, sign-up to receive the inPhase Newsletter.

Sign-Up Now!
Support Shield

RoHS

WEEE Directives

Electronic components such as microchips or transistors, and devices as simple as relays and switches have at least one thing in common: these components are fabricated with potentially hazardous materials.

Hazardous Materials

  • Hazardous Substance
  • Lead - Pb
  • Mercury - Hg
  • Cadmium - Cd
  • Hexavalent Chromium Cr (VI)
  • Polybrominated biphenyls - PBB
  • Polybrominated diphenyl ethers - PBDE

Directive 2002/95/EC

The European Union (EU) has enacted Directive 2002/95/EC also called the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) initiative which becomes effective on July 1, 2006. Additional legislation being enacted is the WEEE (Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment) Directive further aimed at dealing with end-of-life toxins present in electronics.

The aim of this legislation is to significantly reduce the amount of the hazardous materials (shown in the chart above) in both electronic components and assemblies that enter the European Union. This legislation has been enacted as a method to help reduce both environmental contamination (from recycled/disposed electronics) and human health hazards.

Any American company seeking to sell products within the EU must abide by Directive 2002/95/EU on and after July 1, 2006.

The United States Government has not adopted the RoHS initiative to date; however the RoHS directive may still impact your company’s business operations.

The RoHS directive therefore affects nearly all major device manufacturers in the world whose components are placed in electronics to be sold in the EU.

It is important for every company to consider the effects that RoHS may have on their business and engineering operations.

Even if a company does not ship products to the EU, it may be affected by RoHS.

Component suppliers such as Phillips, Samtec, Texas Instruments, Micron, TDK , Xilinx, Altera and many other companies have been working towards RoHS compliance. For a component vendor, this means retooling their production to reduce the concentration of the identified hazardous materials in the devices that they distribute.

Most of the RoHS devices are issued unique part numbers to allow them to be designed into EU devices for July 1, 2006 compliance. It is reasonable to anticipate that vendors will not want to maintain two tooling/production sets and two part numbers for the RoHS and non-RoHS devices significantly past 2006.

What is occuring is that vendors are obsoleting the non-RoHS devices as more countries outside the EU adopt RoHS-like guidelines. This is already occurring in the U.S.A. on a state-by-state basis. California, for example, is planning on issuing their own contaminant guidelines based on the RoHS standard. As individual states begin to pass contaminant guidelines, more and more companies may be forced into RoHS compliance even if they do not ship to the EU and even if no US Federal legislation is in place.

The impact that RoHS will have on engineering designs and product deployment could include:

  1. RoHS may require a requalification of a design using the RoHS compliant parts
  2. A design may have to be re-engineered to support the RoHS compliant parts
  3. The different chemical makeup of RoHS parts may require an additional “learning curve” for PCB assembly houses to re-tool soldering processes

Understanding how RoHS may impact their designs

Finger Lakes Engineering is currently working with affected clients to help them understand how RoHS may impact their designs. FLE is provided both re-engineering services and device qualification services to these clients.

In addition, all of Finger Lakes Engineering’s design libraries and Bill-of-Materials/Procurement systems have been converted to support RoHS compliant purchasing of components.

Even if your company’s designs are not sold to the EU, please consider the implications RoHS directives may have for your organization.