A time for understanding
10 November 2008
What the electronics industry does not need at the moment is another legislation-lead sea change on a par with the move away from lead based solders.
As I suggested in my column on 27 October (Gain and pain? What’s going wrong?), I don't believe that the severity of the global financial downturn has yet affected the electronics manufacturing industry in the way that we might have expected. Maybe it will in time, but as we have no real idea about how the economic situation will unfold over the coming months then it is doubly difficult to predict the fortunes for electronics companies.
I think it is safe to assume that the road ahead is going to be a bumpy one, and what we don't need is further obstacles in our way. Even with out global recessions I think that most of us would agree that the ban on lead has provided an unwelcome and expensive distraction from having a 'smooth road' to travel down over the past few years. Many still argue that it was an unnecessary obstacle as well. It is more than a decade since the Montreal protocol demanded a banning of CFCs, in a slightly less disruptive, yet more justifiable move.
Now the European Union is looking at how to extend the RoHS legislation so that we can all (as global citizens) be protected from ourselves (as nasty polluting industrialists). More particularly it is looking at Tetrabromobisphenol A, better known as TBBPA, which is a brominated flame retardant. More specifically its principal use is in the epoxy resin used to make PCBs.
We are all so familiar with standard substrates and the materials that are used in the construction of multi-layer boards, that the performance of FR4 in the electronics assembly environment is taken for granted – in the same way that CFC cleaners and lead-based solders were. The difference here is that the CFC cleaners and tin-lead solders were both used in the assembly environment whereas the TBBPA used in board fabrication is not.
There is certainly no chance of just leaving out the TBBPA, as was possible with the CFC cleaners, nor is there a replacement, as there eventually was with solder, so if TBBPAs are banned then there needs to be some research done fairly rapidly into a suitable replacement. Maybe when this was done then problems might start appearing at the assembly stage. We know how FR4 and other substrates perform under the thermal cycling of the reflow oven, but what if that taken-for-granted performance is no longer quite so reliable? What if PCBs started to laminate unexpectedly or solder masks started peeling off prematurely?
Of course, what is more likely is that there would be no problems from a technical point of view. But the main thrust of my argument would be 'why do it now?'
Industry would far rather be channelling its efforts towards product development and saving costs rather than re-inventing the wheel and adding more expense. If it is proven that there is a case against TBBPAs, and I believe that there is considerable doubt about that, then add it to the RoHS list at that stage - but legislation driven change is not what the industry needs at this slightly precipitous time.
Another argument is that TBBPAs become part of the polymer used in the PCB. It is not a free chemical that has a license to maim and kill once released onto the supermarket shelves. If the WEEE legislation, therefore, was doing its job, then the electronic goods that contained the TBBPAs would be safely dealt with as part of the life cycle management of the product.
So I think the answer might be to monitor its use under REACh, deal with it under WEEE, but don't penalise the industry unnecessarily by including it in RoHS.
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