Folks,
I recently received this note:
Hello Dr. Ron,
A colleague of mine sent me the following article. I'm about to start the Pb-Free implementation and wondering where do we stand.
Regards,
Max
The article referenced was from a Dr. Howard Johnson and it delineated all of the reasons lead-free solder is a bad idea. The article also discussed John Burke's Operation Push Back. While Johnson's article makes some good points, repealing RoHS now would be about like repealing the US IRS taxation code. It's not going to happen. The lack of any real hope of a repeal of RoHS is strengthened by the likes of IBM, Motorola, HP, Nokia, and a host of world wide industrial electronics leaders obeying the new law and delivering products with acceptable field performance.
There will always be anecdotal data to suggest lead-free reliability has concerns, but with 100s of millions of products out in the field since 2001, with no credible large scale problems, the reliability "crisis" of lead-free loses its punch.
Cheers,
Dr. Ron