Basic Information Regarding Tin Whiskers (2008)(nepp.nasa.gov) |
Basic Information Regarding Tin Whiskers (2008)(nepp.nasa.gov) |
If I remember correctly, once they start growing the growth rate is reasonably constant and can reach many millimeters per year.
If that doesn't sound bad at all, keep in mind that fine pitch integrated circuit pads in modern electronics could be in the order of 0.2 mm apart. Which means a tin whisker that grows at a rate of 10 mm/year could bridge that gap in about one week.
I could be wrong on this, but it is my opinion we will eventually discover the RoHS initiative backfired and we generated more consumer waste than we every had before RoHS. I still have my 30+ year old HP-41C calculator (as well as a small collection of other HP calculators). They all work perfectly. They don't have lead-free solder. I doubt any RoHS era calculators will be able to survive that long and still work. In other words, we are likely filling our trash dumps at a faster rate than ever before due to RoHS.
RoHS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
There’s been plenty of work, but It’s a hard one to elucidate physical mechanisms for because they are super rare in terms of the number of potential initiation sites... You have to get lucky if you want to observe the material state before the whisker formed
It’s become more of a practical problem since the restrictions on leaded solders, since lead-free solder alloys seem more prone to whisker formation...
It's very upsetting to see this happen to your own hardware, just because some EU bureaucrats believe that long-lasting electronic products are a bad thing rather than a good thing. Fortunately, 6 years down the road, it appears to have been a one-time incident.
Those "EU bureaucrats" are protecting their children, and by extension yours through a sort of regulatory herd immunity, from lead toxicity.
We should be doing that for electronics, too. Right now "recycling" electronics means sending it to China where some kid takes it apart with a blowtorch, so yeah, I'm sure they appreciate RoHS. That doesn't make it a net win for the electronics industry or for humanity in general.
Admittedly, you're right about reliability increasing over time, and I'll further admit that I expected a different outcome entirely. By making manufacturing more difficult and expensive, RoHS forced everyone to pay strict attention to their processes, and that tends to result in better products. The Amphenol thing is a glaring exception.
Yeah, right. Where are the numbers? If lead "leeches" out of solder and into the water table, it happens in microscopic quantities on geologic timescales.
Getting lead out of gasoline made sense. Solder and plating, no. At less than 0.66 grams of solder based on tin content alone [1], one iPhone built with 63/37 eutectic lead solder would contain less lead than about 20,000 car batteries. Last I checked, we're still poisoning your children with those.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/433wyq/everything-thats-i...
Sheesh, I'd hope so. Make that 20000 phones ~= one car battery. Must be all that lead getting to me.