[tinwhiskers] Re: [LF] [RoHSUSAPushback] Update on H.B. 2420

  • From: engelmaier@xxxxxxx
  • To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Leadfree@xxxxxxx, tinwhiskers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:27:08 -0400


 Hi Bob,

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately, it is ignorant remark like the one you are quoting, that gets 
the whole industry into trouble.

It is were dangerous to judge the rest of the industry of one's limited 
perspective—see my recent blog in the IPC blogs.

Werner















-----Original Message-----

From: Bob Landman <rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: Leadfree@xxxxxxx

Sent: Sat, Jul 18, 2009 11:25 am

Subject: Re: [LF] [RoHSUSAPushback] Update on H.B. 2420













Colleagues:

This past week I attended a SMTA/IEEE joint meeting on lead free manufacturing.

The presenters statements, as well as those in attendance, except for myself a

few others, were sanguine about the reliability of lead free manufacturing

today.  A statement was made by a reliability engineer with many years

experience that there was no reliability concerns now that lead has been

eliminated except perhaps for NASA space projects because “most electronics has

a useful life of 3 years”.   The agenda of the meeting:  July_2009_SMTA-IEEE

joint_meeting - Hudson NH.pdf

Are you all prepared to toss the electronics you have purchased in 3-5 years

since the RoHS law came into effect?  Willing to role the dice?   What about all

the extremely expensive test equipment being purchased today (from Agilent,

Tektronix, Teradyne, etc..)   It is all lead free now.  Is there really nothing

to worry about?

Are you
saying to yourself “I doubt it will happen to me”?  What convinced you?

Where’s the evidence?  On what is your level of confidence based?  Isn’t it so

that lead-free electronics is in its infancy?  Hasn’t the literature made it

clear it takes years to show the failures (and they may be intermittent failures

which are very hard to find)?

How about that new car you just purchased that is loaded with electronics (which

includes pollution controls, air bag deployment and anti-lock brakes).  How

about that rapid transit train you ride to work every day in that is controlled

by electronics?  Did you see the pictures of the crash of the Wash DC Metro a

few weeks ago?  That was blamed on a failure of the control system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14rail.html   WASHINGTON — A single broken

part probably caused last month’s deadly train crash here, the National

Transportation Safety Boardhinted Monday, as it issued an urgent recommendation

to local and federal authorities to evaluate similar systems around the country

for “adequate safety redundancy.”

More than ever before, technology is connected to our lives in a very intimate

way.  Someone you know has a pacemaker.  Cardiac pacemakers have failed due to

tin whiskers – did you know that?  The FDA recalled them -

2008-Brusse-Pacemaker Committee-Metal Whiskers.pdf

There have been many recent articles on the sub
ject which clearly indicate that

tin whiskering is still a concern.   Here are links to them so you can judge for

yourselves.  (or do you not want to know, you want to maintain your lead-free

innocence?)

Several quotes come to mind as I reflected on what I was hearing that evening…

Mark Twain said ““It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's

what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

Louis Pasteur noted that “In the fields of observation chance favors only the

prepared mind”.



1)   APEX 09 Bare Board Material Performance after Pb-free Reflow

-presentation.pdf (excellent very detailed study of reliability of lead free pc

boards)

2)   apex tin mitigation Lesniewski.pdf  (suggestions on how to mitigate (not

eliminate) tin whiskering)

3)   NASA_DoD LFE Project-June-24-2009_SN whisker tele.pdf  (excellent

presentation by Kurt Kessel of NASA Kennedy on extended life testing of

lead-free mfg)

4)   The Pb-free Manhattan project.pdf  (why is this proposed $60M project

necessary?)

5)    Borgesen_Lead_free_reliability.pdf  (Borgeson notes here how one can be

deceived by the design of experiment into thinking all is well with lead free

mfg)

6)   Developing a NASA Lead-Free Policy for Electroncs_Lessons Learned.pdf

7)   Pb-free DoD brochure.pdf  and DID for LFCP DI-MGMT-81772.doc  (DOD cautions

to be aware of lead-free problems)

NASA also has quite a collection of
 articles at this link http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/



Bob Landman, President

Senior Member, IEEE

IEEE Power & Energy/Reliability Societies

H&L Instruments, LLC

www.hlinstruments.com



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