Controlling hazardous substances, like lead, cadmium, and
mercury, is essential to improving the products we create. It is valuable to
our industry's end users, resell outlets, and manufacturers. The choice has also
faced some heavy criticism in the past decade. These criticisms are mostly in
response to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), which was
adopted by the European Union in 2003 and enacted in 2006.
The RoHS directive saw feedback that sited increased
production costs, difficulties with superheated materials, and overall
reliability. While these thoughts were valid, the change has not affected the
industry as harshly as manufactures predicted in 2005. Most notably, product
reliability has increased. Moreover, solder reliability has increased while
component sizes have decreased.
Lead-free solder helps manufacturers dramatically reduce
component sizes. This is because lead-free solder does not
wet well, allowing producers to print leads closer together. In fact,
experiments with lead-based and lead-free leads found fewer shortages and other
problems with lead-free solder.
When you add in the 20% lead, 63% cadmium, 56% mercury,
and 68% Octa-BDE reduction the European industry has seen in the first three
years, you see the benefits of lead-free solder outweigh the costs by far.
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