Why does RoHS exist???

[Shocker]

RoHS has driven me up the wall.

I mean, first you shorten the life of BGAs and now I've got a hard drive to be fixed??? How is that good for the environment???

It grows whiskers, it's more brittle, it's harder to work with, it only marginally reduces the total lead used in the electronics industry, no doubt it doesn't stop there...

That aside, go ahead and guess why RoHS came to be.

[mariushm]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

It exists because politicians didn't want to look bad for not voting a law that said "recycling" in it.

See this video that gives lots of info about RoHS and whiskers, very informative:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQF1z...ature=g-high-u

Short story: whiskers exist everywhere, it's a property of the TIN inside solder, so you get that with leaded solder as well (but the whisker grow is inhibited by the lead).

[Shocker]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

1. I have the worst internet in existence.
2. I don't like YouTube.

And in any case, is it better to have a 99.999% chance of it holding, or a 0% chance???

[mariushm]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Here, I took the liberty to extract the audio and shrink it down to dial up sizes :

http://savedonthe.net/a/Tin_Whiskers...ack2_small.m4a (~ 7 MB, 55 minutes)

Basically you don't miss much compared to the video, there's only about 10-15 slides but he repeats what's on the slides.


Well, RoHS was not only about lead, but it also removes or reduces other substances like mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls , diphenyl ethers etc

It's Restriction Of Hazardous Substances

Some were useful just like lead in an useful way, for example mercury (and it's still used in some chips and switches) ... and others like those polybro... were basically flame retardants and insulators which were only used simply because once they were found nobody bothered to look for better alternatives.

Cadmium and Chromium were just used because either made surfaces more shiny (just like lead makes paint shiny in toys) or because they made metal contacts in switches more resistant to sparks and bending. But they were not obligatory, the industry just didn't care for other chemicals because research is expensive.

The problem is those chemicals are very toxic in various forms - people in India and other poor countries were burning up pcbs to detach the expensive copper from the boards so they got poisoned when those chemicals were turning into gas.

Mercury is also an issue... when it goes into you it starts accumulating, basically at a young age if you get lots of lead it simply makes you stupid.

The video also explains that those whiskers caused by various reasons, including how much carbon residue is in the tin from the factory, how clean the tin bath walls are (the liquid tin stays there while board goes above and get the bottom covered in tin) ... and for other reasons.

Leaded solder also gets whiskers but lead just slows down the growth so usually what happens is that there's a higher chance that whisker grows will not grow tall enough to short something. There will be some that grow, but they usually burn up, they can't handle lots of current.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

What would you have said in the 1970s, when lead was being eliminated from gasoline and plumbing?

I realize that RoHS doesn't clean up a hazard nearly as bad as those, at least not in developed nations.

[Wester547]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

My only issue with it is that it doesn't take flex (heat/cold cycles) well. Neither does BGA, QFN, CSP, or any other alike package. But I can understand trying to remove toxic chemicals from electronics, for the same reason why CRTs were being phased out in favor of LCDs no matter how many times more reliable CRTs were (EMFs and Mercury). Not only does it make companies who develop chips and the industry "look" better, it's better for business because as suggested, it's planned obsolescence, like with bad capacitors. No one has to take the rap for failing hardware because warranties would be honored and no one's health would potentially suffer in the same way as it would with the chemicals used in leaded solder. Except when lead-free solder (or RoHS compliant) solder fails, it permanently fails, essentially - if bad capacitors fail they can just be recapped and therein problem solved forever. Not only that, but when bad capacitors fail and their electrolyte leaks (and the oxidization layer gives), that stuff can possibly spill onto other components and become conductive - not good. Of course, RoHS-electronics could develop unhindered tin whiskers which may eventually short the unleaded hardware in question, but I think it'd do just that (maybe it could short anything connected to it? but who knows for sure). More money is made that way.

I still don't think removing what essentially makes electronics "strong" enough to last long with added heat and stress is a great idea. There would be a better way to go about it - not using said chemicals but finding something that takes flex well. I don't see that happening, though - corporate and business interest is far too prevalent an advantage for the interest in long-lasting hardware for customers to sustain. As for HDDs, RoHS is not the only threat to them. It's the least of threats. HDDs are bound to fail sooner or later by their very nature as they are extremely complex and delicate devices. It's just that some are better designed than others so some will last longer but your mileage will vary. They're outdated technology that HAMR may assist, but I think the move to solid-state storage in patterned media (rather than temporary storage) is a better horizon. Anyway, all we can do in earnest is keep everything as well ventilated and cooled as we can, and then perhaps solder fractures won't happen. Of course, by all this I'm not defending RoHS or lead-free solder - I like it no more than anyone else. But I don't think putting dangerous chemicals back into electronics is a good idea, as much as I love older and yes, more reliable computers (CRTs included - those things last forever).

[Shocker]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

But I can understand trying to remove toxic chemicals from electronics, for the same reason why CRTs were being phased out in favor of LCDs no matter how many times more reliable CRTs were (EMFs and Mercury).

Mercury??? You're thinking of fluorescent lighting. CRTs contain lead.

No one has to take the rap for failing hardware because warranties would be honored and no one's health would potentially suffer in the same way as it would with the chemicals used in leaded solder.

Lead in solder is the icing on the cake.

Of course, RoHS-electronics could develop unhindered tin whiskers which may eventually short the unleaded hardware in question, but I think it'd do just that (maybe it could short anything connected to it? but who knows for sure). More money is made that way.

Yeah, at the cost of ruined reputations.

I still don't think removing what essentially makes electronics "strong" enough to last long with added heat and stress is a great idea. There would be a better way to go about it - not using said chemicals but finding something that takes flex well. I don't see that happening, though - corporate and business interest is far too prevalent an advantage for the interest in long-lasting hardware for customers to sustain.

So the environment was in better shape before RoHS. 100% guaranteed or your money back.

As for HDDs, RoHS is not the only threat to them. It's the least of threats.

No warranty is expressed or implied.

HDDs are bound to fail sooner or later by their very nature as they are extremely complex and delicate devices.

Then how come that other 40GB drive has 0 bad sectors???

[mariushm]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Then how come that other 40GB drive has 0 bad sectors???

Data density.

Your 40 GB drive has 2 or 3 platters inside, with 2 surfaces each.
Each bit has plenty of "room" to be stored in, compared to modern hard drives that shove 2 TB in 3 platters.

With such low density, read errors are low and the error correction can do its magic and correct errors before they're even reported to you
the drive doesn't heat up as much due to the fact that it's probably only 5400 rpm ...

The platters don't suffer so much from expanding and shrinking due to the heat (as they rotate at such high speed they heat up)... well, they heat up just as good as the modern drives, but the data density is much smaller so the drive will be fine in cases where the modern drives may obtain a few unrecoverable sectors due to flaw in the platter surface.

Could be just as well that the disk heads are a tiny bit more higher on 40 GB drives because they're not GMR or using some tech that requires the heads to be a few thousands of a mm above the disk to be able to pack bits in a few atoms of platter surface.

It's not better solder, just simpler technology.

[Shocker]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Your 40 GB drive has 2 or 3 platters inside, with 2 surfaces each.

No it doesn't - it only has 1 head.

With such low density, read errors are low and the error correction can do its magic and correct errors before they're even reported to you
the drive doesn't heat up as much due to the fact that it's probably only 5400 rpm ...

It's 7200RPM.

The 80GB drive (which needs solder help) is the same family - Alpine.

[mariushm]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Do you just want to argue with someone? I see you're not willing to listen to what others say.

80 GB on one surface is STILL much less than 2 TB in 4-6 surfaces... A single platter will not heat the insides of a drive as fast and as much as 2 platters.

In your case it might be a fluke, who knows. The point is miniaturization and increase in performance introduce factors that were not a problem even a few years ago, not to mention when the solder formulations were made up decades ago.

The chips didn't heat up that much,
the processors didn't have hundreds or even thousands of pins (there's 2000+ on Intel processors),
they didn't run at Ghz speeds,
they didn't run at 50-80 C constantly like current video cards do,
they didn't consume 300 watts of power like the current video cards can manage to eat,
the computers didn't have several fans and hard drives to cause vibrations throughout the case which would stress the solder joints

Like I said, leaded solder is not a magic fix, and it's not solving the problem with hardware.

If you would have listened to that presentation I linked to you would have understood that a lot of the chemicals banned or limited in quantity are not there for exact reasons but rather because the companies just found out something works better when adding them but then never bothered to keep up with the times once technology improved things.

For example, when they tried tin to solder stuff, they found out it caused whiskers but didn't necessarily understood why, but they noticed that whiskers decreased when adding lead.
Later on, tests revealed that whiskers grow much faster when the tin has a lot of Carbon in it. By that time, factories producing tin were much better and they could constantly deliver Tin with less impurities.

Do you think a company that paid tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their production line certified for medical or military levels of soldering risked testing other solder formulations or decided to pay lots of money to certify their production line to work other solder types? Especially when RoHS exempted them if they were making military grade boards.

Just look at how many solder types are there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder#Solder_alloys

There ARE options to be without lead and other toxic chemicals which work just as good as leaded solder, companies simply have to move their asses and use them.

[Wester547]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Mercury??? You're thinking of fluorescent lighting. CRTs contain lead.

Right, my mistake. They contain dangerous, phosphorous chemicals and compounds.

The platters don't suffer so much from expanding and shrinking due to the heat (as they rotate at such high speed they heat up)... well, they heat up just as good as the modern drives, but the data density is much smaller so the drive will be fine in cases where the modern drives may obtain a few unrecoverable sectors due to flaw in the platter surface.

That's exactly what happened to me. I have a Seagate 40GB Barracuda ATA IV that hasn't once had an issue reallocating any sectors, though it does have quite a few of them (50, but it's rock solid at that) because it's 7200RPM and SeaShield further impedes its flow of air - whereas a 250GB Seagate 7200.9 drive I have has 1 offline uncorrectable (and it's in degraded enough condition that it can't complete the long benchmark of HD Tach without an error) sector and 8 reallocated, which is far worse. Though, that's to be expected - I used the hell out of that drive all its life, including performing a complete backup of all its contents in one sitting when it only had ~30GB left and it performed like a champ. Also, those 40GB drives only have 1 platter, but 2 heads, whereas the larger ones have at least 2 platters and 4 heads. But another ST340016A I have only has 1 reallocated sector, and it's rock solid at that, and it has even more ON time than my other one with 50 reallocations did (note that the one with 50 had a 120GXP IBM 40GB Deskstar mounted right under it for most of its life, significantly increasing its heat output - the other ST340016A was always by itself and always ran at least 4 degrees cooler in celsius).

This being said, I've had plenty of much smaller drives fail much harder, but they were from a more premature time for HDDs, where floppy drives looked reliable in comparison. RoHS, though, again, does not do much to hard drives in my eyes. Perpendicular recording technology is the true threat to me, but that may soon be fixed with Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording.

[Shocker]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

80 GB on one surface

It's 80GB on one platter or 40GB on one surface.

Like I said, leaded solder is not a magic fix, and it's not solving the problem with hardware.

Magic doesn't exist in the first place.

For example, when they tried tin to solder stuff, they found out it caused whiskers but didn't necessarily understood why, but they noticed that whiskers decreased when adding lead.
Later on, tests revealed that whiskers grow much faster when the tin has a lot of Carbon in it. By that time, factories producing tin were much better and they could constantly deliver Tin with less impurities.

If this is the case then I can only conclude that the tin gets contaminated during soldering.

Sometimes, I do trust my own experience over studies, and this is one of those times.

The fact remains that lead-free solder is more brittle.

Nice try but until you see them yourself, I'm not budging.

I didn't start this thread to argue about solder. What we actually need is reliable equipment, and reasonable consumers.

Hazardous substances are a fact of life. Get over it. There are much more dangerous things than solder.

Perpendicular recording technology is the true threat to me, but that may soon be fixed with Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording.

I do agree with that. Without it, what do you think the next biggest threat would be???

[Wester547]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Probably defective PCBs, such as the defective chips from STMicroelectronics found on them, as those seem to curtail the life of the HDDs before worn platters do.

[Shocker]

Re: Why does RoHS exist???

Yep. ST have gotten enough things wrong that I'm leaning on writing them off. Of course a chip company with a good reputation but poor actual reliability is very useful to those who like making things break. But I want chips that actually are reliable.