THE EWF - EUROPEAN FEDERATION FOR WELDING, JOINING AND CUTTING

Low Cost Lead-Free Soldering Technology to Improve Competitiveness of European SME
Contract n. COLL-CT-2004-500454

The electronics industry is facing a challenge. The Restriction of the use of certain of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, effective since July 2006, obliged many parts of the Industry to change from tin/lead solder used to join the electronic components to the printed circuit boards (PCB) to a lead-free solder (LFS).

The change to Lead-Free assembling gives rise a number of challenges: Materials selection and compatibility; Processing and equipment capability; Manufacturing yields and throughput; Functional performance; Establishment of reliability performance and baselines; Health and Safety.

LEADOUT, Low Cost Lead-Free Soldering Technology to Improve the Competitiveness of European SMEs, one of the largest European funded Projects on lead-free technologies under the scope of 6th Framework SME oriented activities aimed at:

» Developing/implementing no flow cost lead-free soldering processes to support SMEs in meet the EU directives
» Establishing process quality standards, reducing defect rates, improving reliability and, therefore, competitiveness
» Improving Health and Safety awareness and pollution prevention.