Thank you Bev.
I was a little surprised by some of the remarks made. I do not claim Ron is
a pal of mine, but I think I know him well enough to say he hasn't old his
soul to the solder companies.
I don't want to unnecessarily prolong this debate, but do want to say.
Yes Pb-free costs users more - everything costs more than lead. However that
doesn't mean Pb-free alloys are more profitable items for the suppliers,
just that silver and tin are more expensive. I would be pleased if someone
can explain to me why an industry sector would lobby for legislation to
increase its material and process costs, force itself to spend shed loads of
money on R&D and not be able to increase its margins to cover the costs. And
yes Pb-free is of questionable benefit to the environment, and yes I think
the time and resource could well have been better spent elsewhere.
We are where we are though, and that is that for most of the people for most
of the time Pb-free works well enough. In manufacturing/assembly terms the
product improvement graph has resumed its normal progress with the
introduction of Pb-free showing as a blip. In some instances, as Ron
suggested, the different wetting/spreading behavior of SAC could well even
be beneficial.
So far as long term quality is concerned, I think it would be fair to say
that high tins are differently reliable to tin/leads. We will have to wait
and see if their different properties do shorten or change long-term
in-service failure modes, or not. Meanwhile I do recall that Sn/Ag solders
have been used in certain sectors/applications for as long as tin/lead (and
where on copper this means effectively any flavor of SAC) because their
properties make them more desirable.
Now this doesn't mean I am in favor of Pb-free. I can think of lots of other
things I could have done with $40billion (the estimated global cost of its
introduction). It did extend my use by date and for that I was grateful, but
it also meant I spent many hours writing (largely futile as it turned out)
submissions to the EU about it and other similar soul sapping stuff. Also
explaining to many aggrieved customers, sometimes after flying miles and
miles to see them: "Don't blame me, I didn't ask for it, I am just trying to
help you deal with it". I think that's where Ron is too.
Regards
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf of Bev Christian
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 2:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...
Richard,
I consider both you and Ron Lasky friends. I disagree with both him saying
it is a "grand success" (without qualification, more on that in a bit) and
you saying his opinion is motivated by greed.
I think I know Ron well enough to know it is not greed. I mean he is not
getting THAT much $ from Indium. :) All kidding aside, it would be against
his moral principles. I think you are too harsh in your comment.
For companies like I work for and many others in the commercial sector, it
has been a grand success, but, as you say, at a cost to the environment and
it has involved succeeding in a grand and fun and challenging scientific and
engineering endeavor. That surmounting of the struggle by those you named
and many others is the "grand success".
Finally, I think George Wenger said it best, I think this is close to a
direct quote: "One of the best things mankind has done environmentally is
ban tetraethyl lead. One of the worst things we have done is ban tin/lead
solder."
With that I close.
Bev
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stadem, Richard D.
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 4:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...
I have to agree with George Wenger, Scott Post and many others.
Irresponsible statements like "lead-free solder is a grand success" should
NOT be ignored. Those who make such statements in the face of all of the
contrary evidence should be noted, and treated as motivated only by greed.
Lead-free soldering certainly has been known for many "thousand$" of
successes.
I have learned that it is not even worth the bother to refute such
statements with those who make them. It may be a "grand success" for PhDs
who contract to solder paste companies, but it certainly has not been a
"grand success" to literally thousands of companies dealing with the
reliability elephant sitting in the room getting larger by the day, and the
associated fallout as a result.
It certainly has not been a success to the environment, because it created
many negative environmental impacts where there were none in the first
place. As a result of the tin mining issues, as well as billions of
additional kilowatt hours needed yearly to reflow the same products, and the
loss of reliability that goes hand-in-hand with the elimination of lead in
the solder joint, well, it certainly cannot be called anything close to a
"grand success".
And it certainly was very poorly planned and implemented. RoHS requirements
for lead-free solder were rammed through without any due diligence on the
part of the solder companies whatsoever. Ironically, we, an industry that
prides itself for its reliability assurance and quality standards and for
developing tools such as FMEA, 5 Whys, and other mistake-proofing methods
can only shake our heads in dismay and embarrassment from these
self-appointed "solder experts" who irresponsibly supported these changes
forced upon us by the EU, and are now standing at the pulpit and make such
claims as if they were directly responsible for this "Grand $ucce$$".
Indeed, if lead-free solder was a "grand success", it was only so because of
the humongous collective effort and the collaboration by the process
engineers and scientists and the true reliability experts within the
industry such as Werner Engelmaier, Craig Hillman, Dave Hillman, George
Wenger, and so many others who were able to identify and respond to all of
the issues, which extend well beyond just tin whiskers.
They were able to identify issues such as pad cratering, head-on-pillow,
shrinkage cracks, the exacerbation of Black Pad and Brittle nickel due to
the lack of lead and higher reflow and rework temperatures, copper
dissolution and de-wetting, non-homogeneous mixed-alloy BGA solder joints,
PWB issues and component reliability issues from reflow at higher lead-free
temperatures, and literally hundreds of other problems that popped up as a
result of lead-free solder and RoHS requirements in general.
If an engineer forced through changes like this in a process where I work,
without having done the due diligence and thorough qualification required,
he would have been fired.
Had not some of true experts been here to identify and solve these issues
that resulted from RoHS lead-free requirements, it would have been much more
of a fiasco and clusterfooey than it actually was and still is. Can you
imagine what something like this would have been like without the benefit of
these people and the Technet Forum?
Those in the Forum are the people I will listen to when they declare
anything as being a "grand success", not them other smart folks who don't
know a Metcal iron from a Hakko wand.
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wenger, George M.
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 12:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...
It seems premature to state "lead-free solder is a grand success" with only
five years (July 2006 to July 2011) experience.
Regards,
George
George M. Wenger
Senior Principal Reliability / FMA Engineer
Andrew Corporation - Wireless Network Solutions
40 Technology Drive, Warren, NJ 07059
(908) 546-4531 Office (732) 309-8964 Mobile
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric Christison
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 12:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1389&doc_id=231199&f_src=des
ignnews_gnews
"Dr. Ronald Lasky, Dartmouth professor of engineering and a frequent
blogger on solder, claims the transition to lead-free was a grand
success. "A lot of people claim that lead-free solder is not as reliable
as lead-based solder," Lasky told me. "We're now five years into the
implementation of RoHS, and we've made $3 trillion work of electronic.
We haven't really noticed any big change in reliability.""
I thought some of you may be interested in the above article.
Regards,
--
Eric Christison
Consumer& Micro group
Imaging Division
STMicroelectronics (R&D) Ltd
33 Pinkhill
Edinburgh EH12 7BF
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)131 336 6165
Fax: + 44 (0)131 336 6001
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