Introduction

After the 1st of July 2006, most of electric and electronic devices (defined by WEEE) containing hazardous materials (defined by RoHS) will be banned by EU directives. Electronic manufacturers and assemblers have to remove the restricted materials. Manufacturers now use different lead-free materials on PWBs. The used material conditions depend on requirements regarding the thermal and mechanical reliability of electronic components and the life cycle scenarios. These scenarios include all service activities like repair and rework as well as the collection, sorting, shredder and smelting in the end-of-life recycling process. In these life cycle stages, the knowledge about the used materials is one of the decisive factors in costs or benefit and define the environmental impact of materials in the manufactured and brought to the market electronics.

Providing information about solders and finishes are not a requirement in current standards for electronics manufacturing. But this information is necessary for reliable repair, effective recycling, and for traceability as well as for statistics and quality assessment of lead-free soldered PWBs. Unless the last data are used in the supply chain resorting to bi- or multilateral agreements, the most information should be non-disclosure and in a world wide understandable, accessible and standardized form.

It will remain open whether to store other information relevant to WEEE definitions or not, e.g. about classification of PWB into different classes according to production dates. In addition, process describing data from manufacturing could be included to estimate influence of thermal stress on remaining lifetime.

The task undertaken from the Technical University Berlin is to define a useable and useful form of labeling and bring together the interested parties to achieve a common proposal for standardization.

AUTHOR: Irina Stobbe, TU Berlin, Germany (11/2004)

 Scopes and Objectives of the Labeling Task [next chapter]