RoHS & WEEE
The view from the manufacturer...

In our third feature on the RoHS Directive, Gary Nevison, Head of Product and Market Strategy, Premier Farnell Europe and Asia Pacific, talks to Ray Sinclair, Regional Director Sales & Distribution Europe, National Semiconductor

The aim of the directives is to bring environmental benefits for us all, do you think that this has been highlighted enough in the debate surrounding the directives?
Perhaps not, but the environmental benefits have always been the overall driving factor within our business. Separate from lead, it has been our policy to ban heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium and mercury for many years as part of our Green Project, which we initiated in 2002, in order to push the reduction of hazardous products and emissions, both in our products and processes.

Approximately what percentage of your product range is already compliant and when do you expect the remainder to be so?
The majority of National Semiconductor products are already compliant and available, including almost all of our micro SMD packages. We aim to be fully compliant by the end of 2004, long before the July 2006 deadline. This high level of compliance has not been achieved overnight – RoHS and WEEE has been on our agenda for more than two years with a dedicated team at the National Semiconductor manufacturing plant in Greenock, Scotland which has worked hard to ensure that the EU legislation is fully understood and implemented appropriately by the business. Additionally National all WW manufacturing sites at National are ISO14001 certified.

Will you have a chemical break-down of each product available on your website, and if so, when do you think this information will be available?
The chemical composition for every product is already available on the National Semiconductor website. Not only do we have a record of what each product contains, but also what it does not contain, ensuring that the customer can see at a glance exactly what they are buying.

How will you identify compliance?
National Semiconductor is using a ‘NoPB’ tag on the ordering flow information and ‘Lead Free’ labels on the boxes/reels in addition the device can be identified through a specific numbering sequence in the die run code on the device. We do not intend adding any suffix to the part numbers.

Will you produce ‘non-compliant’ parts for maintenance and repair after July 2006?
National has not made a decision on this yet.

Are there any issues in particular that you have found difficult to address, but have succeeded in finding a solution to?
The main issues have been due to the higher soldering temperature which adversely affects the moisture sensitivity (MSL) level. In addition the halogen free flame retardants, which must be added to the plastic compound, are not scheduled until 2005. The other issue is large BGA packages which are not yet available in lead free.

Sony called for exacting targets in respect to its suppliers’ commitment to the environment and as from April 2003 would only procure from companies that qualified on its ‘Green Partner Program’. By establishing an environmental management system which monitors and manages substances, as well as eliminating certain chemicals altogether, we achieved certification. We have now incorporated these measures into our own environmental policies, so that all our suppliers must certify to the absence of banned substances in each raw material or packing material provided to National Semiconductor. In this way, lead-free is being driven across the supply chain.

This article appears in New Electronics magazine (May Edition)