The new IPC Solder Quarterly Survey has just been released. Lead-free
solder percent of Global sales is 55.2% in Q2-'07, up 1.5% from 53.7% in
Q1-'07.

It is the changes by region that are so noteworthy: 

. Americas--almost no change, old tin-lead solder still maintains 79%
share
. Asia excluding China and Japan---lead- free up from 58.2% to 69% (Could
be due to increased total production in Viet Nam and Thailand)
. China---lead-free DOWN 11%, from 75.2% to 64.1%! (That IS noteworthy! It
may be an early sign of lead-free growth stalling or reversing.)

Most other regions were static, except in Japan lead-free increased to
68.7%, up 4%

What's going on? What may we expect of lead-free in the future? And how
will the emergence of the OCCAM Process impact near and intermediate term
conversions to or from lead-free solder?

It is OEM decisions that will answer all of the questions so we must
consider the factors that will influence those decisions. Poor lead-free
reliability is number 1.  Manufacturing cost is right up there-- we'll
designate it Priority 2.  To many, environmental friendliness is No. 1. 
We'll make that our Bullet 3, for convenience of discussion.

Anecdotal evidence of massive equipment failures has emerged, open
circuits due to thermal cycling of lead-free solder joints.  Microsoft's
X-Box game is an outstanding example, with $1B set aside by the company
for repairs. 

So we may expect OEMs in the near term to do the following with the help
of 
EMS partners-- find fixes, analyze failure risks product by product,
assess liability.  Conversions to lead-free will stall, in light of
concerns and diversion of resources.  Don't expect these measures to be
publicly announced or to be attributed to lead-free remedies. The OEMs
were forced into lead-free. Most have obviously decided that going back to
tin-lead solder is not an option because of negative impact on public
relations.   There's a new option on the table for the long-term--OCCAM. 
It would hypothetically eliminate all solder, lead and lead-free. 

In all electronic equipment printed circuit boards that will have been
made in 2007, there will be about 7 trillion solder joints.  Occam would
replace each of them with a copper plated blind via, connecting build-up
traces to component pads.

We'll leave the cost saving analysis-- metals, flux, labor, equipment--
for further discussion. (Thoughts from the floor are welcome).  

But environmental benefit of eliminating solder will be acclaimed by all.

 To learn more about the Occam Process go to <www.verdantelectronics.com>.
There's a White paper there and details about a forthcoming Webinar. 


Harvey Miller
650-328-4550

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