Dave,

On the basis of what you say, you might have to sit this one out.    I am not
trying to defend the July 1, 2006 deadline although it serves a purpose to
have it there just as JFK's target for getting man on the moon served a useful
motivational purpose.

If you are in a zero tolerance situation then probably the best you can do is
watch from the sidelines as the experience in areas that can tolerate an
occasional failure accumulates.    There are enough conferences scheduled that
word of any problems will get out quickly.   The wide range of conditions to
which soldered joints are subjected even in consumer electronics means that any
major vulnerabilities in lead-free joints will start to show up soon, maybe even
before July 1 2006.

As several contributors to this forum point out repeatedly, if you are in a
zero tolerance situation you really have no choice but to sit it out.  There is
no accelerated testing that can with absolute confidence predict the
reliability of a lead-free soldered joint in real time.   Ringing the changes on
temperatures, ramp rates, dwell times, total strains etc might winkle out
particular failure modes that have not yet emerged from general field experience but
there is no guarantee that every real life possibility will be covered.

And it has to be acknowledged that despite all the data and experience that
is available failures are still occurring with tin-lead solder.   Or are you
getting perfectly predictable reliability with tin-lead at the moment?

Best wishes
Keith

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