When Removing Hazardous Substances from Electronic Components Makes Sense Technically and Economically
RoHSwell: Another point of interest is the economics. When is conversion cost effective? When is replacement financially prudent?
Joel: One answer is a simple formula, and the other is a business necessity. The formula to use is as follows: If you have already purchased $X worth of components you cannot use (because they either are Pb or Pb-free), and the replacement cost is $Y, then component conversion makes economic sense when Y is greater than X plus the conversion costs. In many cases, however, the compelling reasons to convert components owe to solving acute business problems such as lack of availability of the desired parts owing to "end of life" or allocation.
RoHSwell: You emphasize the importance not only of E-Certa's post-conversion chemical testing, but also your testing of in-coming components. Why is that so critical?
Joel: For example, manufacturers are getting certificates of compliance that say "these components are RoHS compliant," but it is not rare that upon initial screening we discover that the parts are non compliant. Given that E-Certa is already conducting front and back testing for the conversion process, we also test components (with our high-end XRF system) to address companies' concern about whether the materials are indeed as promised. (E Certa goes a step further-with its delidding service--to identify counterfeit components, in which the chip does not match the package.)
Once, a client shipped to us components it bought from a vendor, because the client heard reports of intermittent errors after these components were assembled onto printed-circuit boards. The client wondered if the components were counterfeit. First, to test the client's theory, we performed our delidding service--a destructive process in which the lid is removed and the chip inside is examined with a high-power metallurgical microscope. The brand and codes on the chip indeed matched those on the exterior package; the components were legitimate after all. So then we tested the component with our desktop XRF system, and solved the mystery: Some of the components had 1998 date codes, and these worked well; the others had 2001 date codes, and these components failed owing to measurably different amounts of Pb on the leads! The client was experiencing wetting/solderability issues because of different material content: 30,000 parts per million Pb in the 1998 components, and barely 1,000 ppm in the 2001 versions.
RoHSwell: How do you feel that the RoHS and other green directives will aid in improving our environment?
Joel: If manufacturers take all the responsible actions necessary to achieve compliance, this would have to include a prudent plan for existing inventories left in the supply chain both on manufacturing and distributor shelves. With the ability to apply physical conversion applications to reused and recycled components, removal of banned substances can now, and should be, reduced to compliant levels before product at end of life is dumped into landfills or polluted into the air by refinery methods. Given the WEEE and RoHS directives and JEITA guidelines, along with their amendments and exemptions, clearly there is an increasing need for manufacturers to have an environmental plan in place. The clear choice presented by all these initiatives is to re-manufacture, repair, reuse, and recycle.
Additional Resources
RoHS Exemptions: Winners, Losers and Why - article on some of the findings of the Oko-Institut report from the summer 2006 exemptions review.
Convert Pb-bearing parts to RoHS compliant, E-Certa
