Environmental Compliance of Electrical and Electronic Products

ECD Technology Ltd

Environmental Compliance of Electrical and
Electronic Products and Systems

Archives

May 29, 2007: Intel announces that their next generation processors will be entirely Pb-free. Intel has been hinting for the past year that it will move to discontinue it’s Pb-based manufacturing. The next generation processors will be available only with Pb-free terminations/balls and will not require the Pb in flip-chip exemption that has been used throughout the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Intel also plans to discontinue its existing Pb-based products, but has not set a specific date.

April 2007: The IEC is developing an international standard on Environmentally Conscious Design (ECD) of IT and Communication Technology products (IEC62075, Ed 1.0). The standard is being developed by experts within the TC108 committee -- representatives from the major IT and communication equipment producers. Balloting on the draft standard closed this month. The current proposal specifies requirements and recommendations for the environmentally conscious design of products with regard to:

life cycle thinking aspects,
material efficiency,
energy efficiency,
consumables and batteries,
chemical and noise emissions,
extension of product lifetime,
end of life,
hazardous substances/preparations,
product packaging, and
documentation.

Mar 1, 2007:China RoHS marking, documentation, and packaging requirements come into effect.

Oct 14, 2006: The European Commission has officially published the nine exemptions approved by the TAC (Technical Adaptation Committee) in June 2006. The exemptions were published in Commission Decisions 2006/690/EC, 2006/691/EC, and 2006/692/EC. The new exemptions include hexavalent chromium in select category 3 applications and Pb in the terminal finish of select fine pitch Integrated Circuits.

September 2006: IEC/TC111 began development of TS62476 “Guidance for assessing compliance of finished goods with respect to restriction of use of hazardous substances". As an International Specification, the objective is to make the guidance generally applicable across multiple regions, including the European Union and China.

July 2006: IEC/TC111 began development of a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) on “Sample Disjointment”. This specification will assist manufacturers and OEMs disassembling and sampling products/components for purpose of testing with respect to the RoHS restricted substances.

June 7, 2006: IPC has released an update to the material declaration forms that correct the licensing issue by Adobe. Adobe is working to provide a secure, web-based system to reenable v1.0 forms and remove the time restriction on existing forms. (UPDATE: As of Oct 2006, the re-enablement web site is still awaiting release)