Some details of the legislation, such as the exact percentage of allowable lead content and penalties for noncompliance, need to be ironed out in coming months. But the new regulations have already compelled the electronics industry to be more serious about becoming lead-free, despite cost concerns and nagging hurdles including the availability of lead-free components and uncertainty over soldering and assembly procedures.

"Since the legislation has been cemented, I've had more requests from OEMs in one month than I've had the rest of the year," said Thilo Sack, an advisory engineer at EMS provider Celestica Inc., Toronto. "There has been a significant uptick in the inquiry rate."

Indeed, momentum is building, according to Jim McElroy, chief executive of the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative Inc., a Hearndon, Va., industry consortium of electronics manufacturers and suppliers. "Everybody has to get ready."

The European Parliament's directive known as RoHS (Restrictions of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic equipment), and companion directive known as WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which requires manufacturers to bear the responsibility of recycling end-of-life products, will apply to most electrical and electronic products, except those used in military/aerospace, medical, server, and automotive applications.

In the exempt products, lead-free soldering solutions have not yet proven technically feasible, according to Leslee Coleman, director of government relations for contract manufacturer Solectron Corp., Milpitas, Calif.

Manufacturers of the exempted products have until 2010 to comply; however, if the laws are revised, exemptions could be lifted earlier, Coleman said.

Some unnamed makers of servers not immediately subject to lead-free legislation recently announced plans to make some of their products lead-free as early as mid-2004, Sack said. Up to now, the consumer electronics sector has been in the forefront of lead-free conversion, he added.

Pacesetters
Motorola Inc., for example, has been making some of its cell phones without lead since March 2001 and expects development of the mobile devices to pick up, said Craig Liska, corporate director of international environmental health and safety at the Schaumburg, Ill., company.

"We've sent letters to our suppliers saying our intention is to comply with the European requirements," Liska said.

Motorola and other manufacturers of consumer electronic products are generally ahead of the rest of the industry because they sell many of their wares to Japan, where the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry has been phasing in programs to recycle and label lead-bearing products since 2001.

In anticipation of more stringent European legislation, industry representatives from Europe, Japan, and North America agreed in November on a roadmap to adopt lead-free soldering by the end of 2005.

"We're trying to set up procedures so that everyone is in alignment," said Terry McManus, director of environmental, health, and safety technologies at Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif. "The roadmap is to get suppliers and OEMs on the same page. It's a major change, affecting over 80% of the electronics going into the marketplace."

In recent months, the industry has progressed in solving two key issues in lead-free electronics: eliminating the solder in components' lead plating, and converting to lead-free solder for board assembly.

Tyco Electronics Corp., Harrisburg, Pa., has begun offering tin or tin-copper platings, according to Robert Hilty, director of materials research. The lead-free platings are already available for Tyco's circuit protection devices and are being phased into its connectors, switches, and relays.

"We've introduced the lead-free platings on 5% of our products and plan to implement them on 80% by the end of this year," Hilty said.

ST in the mix
Also accelerating development of lead-free products is France's STMicroelectronics N.V., which plans to begin volume production of power ICs in lead-free surface-mount and ball-grid-array packages in the second quarter of 2003.

The semiconductor supplier is scrambling to make all of its parts lead-free sometime in 2004, according to Carlo Cognetti, corporate package development director.

The conversion is not likely to be smooth. "It will add to our production costs, as there is qualification of both leaded and lead-free versions of the same part," Cognetti said. He expects the company to pass some of the cost to customers in the form of a slight price premium, at least initially.

Availability of lead-free components, however, will be spotty for a while, according to EMS providers.

"Chip capacitors and resistors are being made available with lead-free terminations, but larger parts concern OEMs," said Kim Hyland, director of process integration at Solectron.

Solder issue
The transition to lead-free solder assembly also remains an unsettled issue. Japanese, European, and U.S. companies have agreed to use a tin-silver-copper alloy, but it's not yet clear what the optimal reflow temperature for the alloy is. While most tin-lead component soldering is performed at below 230C, some believe a 260C temperature is needed for lead-free alloys.

JEDEC's latest lead-free solder standard, J-STD-020B, sets a 240C or 250C limit, depending on package size, which some believe would allow adequate solderability while minimizing the need to modify assembly lines and invest in new equipment.

"The standard gives everyone a target to work for," Celestica's Sack said. "But if enough data is brought forward to change the spec, there are mechanisms to do so."

Intel's McManus added: "If can we drive the temperature toward 230C, there may be less of an impact on OEMs. There's still a lot of testing being done."

Uncertainty over lead-free soldering standards are delaying some suppliers' efforts to modify their products to withstand the higher temperatures.

Tyco Electronics, for example, would have to use higher-temperature plastics for some parts.

"We can modify our parts right now, but we're delaying until our customers are ready," Hilty said.