Below is what one company is doing to meet the EU's ban on hexavalent chromium
_____________________ James L. Knighten, Ph.D. Teradata, a division of NCR http://www.ncr.com 17095 Via del Campo San Diego, CA 92127 tel: 858-485-2537 fax: 858-485-3788 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:31 AM To: Knighten, Jim L Subject: RE: RoHS impact on zinc chromate finishes Jim, Well, this is what we are doing. I don't have a lot of details for you. Our first testing will be in a few months. My conversations with our mechanical folks and suppliers lead me to believe this should be a non-issue. Some of our designs were moved to trivalent about a year ago as they were being developed (i.e. they were never hexavalent). We didn't have any issues with certs (safety or EMC) related to this, but I don't have an A/B comparison and won't for another several months. I'll bug our mechanical and process folks to see if they can provide me with any updates on this and let you know if I find anything. Regards, Michael Garretson Compliance Engineering Manager RadiSys Corporation +1 503 615-1515 "Knighten, Jim L" <[email protected] > To Sent by: "Marko Radojicic" owner-emc-pstc@LI <[email protected]>, STSERV.IEEE.ORG <[email protected]> cc 03/09/2005 03:32 Subject PM RE: RoHS impact on zinc chromate finishes Marko, Thanks for the prompt response. I'll always happy to be able put people on the spot! I have been corresponding with a professor of materials science at the University of Missouri-Rolla on this subject. He says that trivalent chromium has been around a while, with a lot of work done by the Navy to replace hexavalent on aircraft. The argument you get into is if it starts as trivalent does it stay trivalent. He agrees with your assertion last April that the electrical properties of trivalent should be similar to hexavalent chromium finishes. I'm looking forward to more information >from him in the future. I am struck by the fact that your post a year ago was the only references that I found that discussed alternative metal finishes and that I haven't been bombarded with reply posts saying, "well, this is what we are doing...." I have to assume that this looming RoHS metal coatings dragon has not really been slain, yet. Most of the posted talk regards non-lead solder, which is its own problem. Jerry Izenheiser, in a private reply, pointed to at U.S. Navy patent from 1994 (US 5,374,347). I also implore someone on this list with a material science background to get into this discussion. My electrical engineering curriculum was light in those areas. Regards, Jim _____________________ James L. Knighten, Ph.D. Teradata, a division of NCR http://www.ncr.com 17095 Via del Campo San Diego, CA 92127 tel: 858-485-2537 fax: 858-485-3788 From: Marko Radojicic [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 3:06 PM To: Knighten, Jim L; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: RoHS impact on zinc chromate finishes Jim, Thanks for putting me on the spot to answer! 8-) I have not yet dived into the Trivalent-Chromium finishes enough to accurately answer your question unfortunately. When I first looked into the issue, the suppliers and mechanical engineers assured me that there was no significant difference in conductivity (see point 3 in my original e-mail). I didn't get any data sheets or material analysis to validate these claims however. Perhaps someone else on the list has a deep material science background and can definitively answer this question. Regards, Marko Marko Radojicic Compliance Engineering Manager Trapeze Networks 5753 W. Las Positas Boulevard Pleasanton, CA 94588 [email protected] (925) 474-2217 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Knighten, Jim L Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 10:58 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RoHS impact on zinc chromate finishes Marko, I found your post in the 2004 archives thanks to Scott Douglas' posted announcement. You appear to be well ahead of the curve in dealing with RoHS requirements. I am interested in any information you can share regarding replacement of hexavalent chromium by trivalent chromium on metal finishes. Can you point me to some information on trivalent finishes that are protective, yet electrically conductive. Currently we use ZINC(Fe/Zn5) ASTM B633 TYPE III. CLEAR .0002 THICK CLEAR: colorless chromate conversion coating and ZINC(Fe/Zn5) ASTM B633 TYPE II. YELLOW .0002 THICK YELLOW: color chromate conversion coating finishes on cold rolled sheet steel chassis (CRS AISI 1010 OR 1018). Naturally, both of these finishes contain hexavelent chromium. I anticipate replacing these hexavalent chromium finishes if I can figure out what to replace them with. Thank you, Jim _____________________ James L. Knighten, Ph.D. Teradata, a division of NCR http://www.ncr.com 17095 Via del Campo San Diego, CA 92127 tel: 858-485-2537 fax: 858-485-3788 1383 - RoHS impact on EMC & Safety SENT: Apr 19, 2004 12:37 PM Greetings, We are in the process of planning to evolve our product line to comply with the upcoming EU directive on hazardous materials - RoHS (Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment - Directive 2002/95/EC). The questions we are facing now is how much testing, if any, is required to requalify products against the EMC and LV Directives after the conversion. Of particular interest are the following material conversions: 1. Change of solder materials - replace Lead (Pb) with a Silver-Copper (Ag-Cu) mixture. 2. Replacement of the flame retardants in the FR-4 - UL94 V-0 rating remains the unchanged. 3. Replacement of Hexavalent Chromium by Trivalent Chromium on metal finishes - resistivity remains pretty well the same. >From everything that I've researched to date, I am leaning towards doing a single A/B comparison for radiated & conducted emissions with the first RoHS-compliant product and then, based on the presumably good results, not doing anymore requalifications. In conjunction, we'll do a full-blown product requalification to ensure that the signal integrity is also unchanged. This strategy will validate that no high-frequency electrical properties have changed, as expected. Does anyone else have thoughts on this matter? Thanks, Marko [email protected] 650/625-2624 PS The full text of the RoHS directive can be found here: http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnu mdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32002L0095&mo del=guichett This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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