The No-Lead Manufacturing Initiative at NEMI

Dr. Srinivas T. Rao

Co-Director of Planning, NEMI

Vice President of Technology, Solectron Corporation

Milpitas, CA 95035

Presentation Abstract

NEMI is actively working to create manufacturing solutions that will address the interests of manufacturers to meet impositions of legislative laws and those fueled by green consumer products. While the term “WEEE directive” is known to many not everyone has assessed the potential impact on their business. The ‘WEEE’ directives are most likely to be adopted in mid 2003, and a number of European countries have already adopted their own laws. These laws may be more or less strict than the WEEE directive. Japanese companies are already engaged in eliminating lead from electronics.

To address the manufacturing needs of OEMs and EMSs NEMI’s initiatives are targeted towards:

1. Identifying an industry “standard” lead-free alloys for reflow and wave soldering.
2. Develop criteria that industry can use to evaluate Pb-free processes.
3. Monitor environmental legislation to adjust activities if necessary.
4. Share our information in a timely manner to promote common path to Pb-free.
5. Develop “best practices” experimental procedures to measure the mechanical, thermal, electrical and wetting properties of lead-free solders.
6. Develop solder databases for properties and literature references for lead-free alloys in the public domain.
7. Promote modeling for reliability through generation of best possible data and modeling methods.
8. Work with component and PCB suppliers to develop specifications necessary to meet higher temperature reflow conditions.

This presentation presents a status report on the Lead-free initiative at NEMI.