[time-nuts] Re : RoHS crap

[Magnus Danielson]

From: Marc Bury <marc_bury at yahoo.fr>
Subject: [time-nuts] Re : RoHS crap
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:29:52 +0000 (GMT)
Message-ID: <20070115212952.53841.qmail at web23110.mail.ird.yahoo.com>

Marc,

> More on the infamous RoHS subject:
> 
> -> Most RoHS parts are indeed compatible with your good old tin solder.
>    But I know for a fact that some RoHS BGA chips (surface mount Ball Grid Array) will not be correctly mounted with a standard Pb process; the reason is that the ball under the BGA package need to melt and fusion with the solder deposit, and that can only happen at RoHS temperature (higher than standard Pb process).

Indeed. While they have upgraded components to be non-leaded, they may not yeat
have succseeded to ensure that the component survives the non-leaded soldering
process. At least not if you read the datasheets. I'm sure that will solve it
self eventually.

While we could call for an exempt, in practice we are forced over to ROHS
compliant parts just because it becomes hard or impossible to find non-ROHS
compliant parts now. If you are pro-ROHS, that is actually a good thing. It is
a head-ache for us but really not that big of a head-ache, just another
problem to solve and so far only for some products.

> That should not affect the average Nixie hobbyist.

No, I don't think so either. Leaded solder will still be available for a long
time, since it really doesn't affect the big volumes of consumer use-and-toss.

> -> FR4 material for PCB is not a problem with RoHS, you just need to use a higher temperature grade FR4, for instance TG150 (good for 150 °C) instead of regular TG135.

Volumes between these should shift pretty quickly.

Cheers,
Magnus