Lead-free soldering more reliable after all?

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can u me which soilder is better 60/40 or lead free

ive been in electronic repair over 30 years worked on old z80 pcbs etc still in current use odd bad joint from time to time The latest stuff churned out by manufactures using lead free is abysmal in quality and design some dvd players ive come across look like someone has put solder on an iron and flicked it at the pcb design is so poor too with capacitors mounted up against heatsinks ive seen memory in a game machine fitted 20mm from another hot component with one each side of a pcb with one having a pathetic heat pad to the case the heat from one travels through the pcb into the other then to the case probably last till just out of warranty designed by very clever people who have no idea of the real world Give me lead solder all the time for reliability

@Barton Y You're just starting so you don't yet know the breadth of the real world and its variability of environment factors in terms of multiplying the complexity of failure mechanisms. What you learn EE school is only the seed of reality and real life experience will tell you eventually that most of what you learned was a pale approximation for reality and never a literal truth. @et alia The worst part lead-free RoHS is that because of outsourcing, those responsible for assuring reliability by virtue of being the outsourced manufacturer will rarely see the in-field failures costs or receive the feedback from their customers indicating a problem that could fix in their process unless it is seriously catastrophic. Proprietary paranoia further amplifies this. Plenty of companies who use outsourcing don't even have engineering staff capable of understanding the field failure well enough to see the need to feed it back to their suppliers. They may even have multiple suppliers, further breaking the likelihood of the feedback being broken. Maybe if the manufacturers do their own reliability testing they might have an inkling to fix things themselves when they are suspect a problem. But that may or may not apply to designs done externally and simple outsourced. I've been involved in systems and component reliability long enough (>30 years) to know lead-free RoHS is and always has been a seriously bad idea. I've seen tin whiskers up close and personal, and had critical systems fail completely as a result. This is _precisely_ the same moral-hazard-by-externalizing-key-business-process that created the real estate bubble and crash with CDO financial systems! The same thing will likely happen here as well. EU RoHS legislators must be the first to go to the wall when this crash happens (e.g. critical technologies fail and people start getting killed - already suspected is a number of transport disasters).

I've seen many comments regarding the merits/demerits of lead/tin solders versus tin/copper/silver, but I have not been able to find much hard data regarding thermal fatigue capabilities of power semiconductor modules constructed with either solder. Can anyone steer me to an appropriate source??

If you are looking at Cell phones, they are designed to fail in about 18 months. Who do you know who has a phone that is 2 years old or more? If you factor all the early life failures of product going into the waste, rather then older units still operating, is there any benefit at all? If lead is so bad, why is it natural? Occurs in nature, and is required by military and medical electronics? Can we sue the UK?

I am a college student and right now doing a lead-free solder joint reliability study. I don''t have much experience in real industry practice, but honestly speaking, I am a little surprised about the above opinions. Based on my book study and experiment, all the results show that lead-free solders have a better performance than lead-tin solders. It is true that the former material is more brittle and the strength of lead-free solders is more about the thermal fatigue issue. I also understand that the lead-tin solder is still used in industries which has a high reliability requirement such as millitary. But all the voices around me are still indicating a lead-free trend in the electronics manufacture industry.

This article is advertising, not honest opinion, in my opinion.

Clearly I am not on W Clark's Christmas card list! All this article did was share a letter with you that I received from a customer in the UK.I pass no personal comment on lead free solder other than to say manufacturers are unlikely to turn back now. Also, had adequate research taken place back in 2003 I doubt lead in solder would be banned today. Likewise there is little point in writing a blog around soft subjects. I aim to put across an objective view on some of the more controversial issues.I do hope that you take the time to read future blogs and I look forward to hearing from you again.

Great! Now that Lead Free is reliable, let's start using them for military planes, missiles, and military electronics, jumbo jets, and pacemakers and life support systems in hospitals.

I know who you are, Joe Money - you''re Farnell''s mum. My business is EMC testing - while you''re busy with the spit and handkerchief, could you ask your lad how we can illuminate our EMC chambers? All that expensive mumetal and ferrite does no good if there''s a massive source of interference dangling from the ceiling. And it''s a serious point about the rotating machinery - the only real non-incandescent option is running 3 sets of fluorescents off 3 different mains phases and relying on the overlapping of the short afterglow. It''s not all bad, as Farnell have been pretty good on RoHS changeover management, which must have been a massive task that would stretch any supplier.

To the 2 comments above: You are the ball droppers and clearly ar not experts on Rohs. Stop complaining about light bulbs and manage your businesses.

The author is obviously not a industry expert in this field. The letter is written as if the major impact of lead free is hand soldering. No mention of the defects we encounter every day. I have read his other articles, this one is over the top. Newark it's time to fire Gary Nevison and find a person with some experience in the industry.

There's nothing in the OP quoted letter that suggests better reliability with RoHS solder - a vague feel for increased mechanical strength is, well, a vague feel, not sound science. I note with dismay that Farnell are completely discontinuing all incandescent light bulbs (thanks for that, now our machine shops are made more dangerous by strobing fluorescents making rotating objects appear stationary or slow-moving), and I can guess that maybe it's the same twisted logic that connects increased RoHS solder reliability with one vague letter that really doesn't suggest anything of the sort. Farnell used to be a great company to deal with, but they've dropped the ball on so many levels in the past year or so, and such tenuous fluffery as the OP is just another fine example.

And one more: all this Lead-Free campaign in electronic products looks even more ridiculous when you consider tons and tons of lead in running around automobile lead-acid batteries.

What more can one say, the earlier comments cover it all. The wholme RoHS deal isan exercise in political correctness in the EU which will cost us all dear. I recently had to do some work on a Chinese product which was actually well-designed with good quality materials and components but had real reliability problems due to use of lead-free solder.

I concur with most of the comments... ROHS - the paving on the road to hell (good intentions).... Shear strength is likely to be better on a well formed ROHS solder joint, but that is not a valid indicator of joint quality. Many more valid indicators show the old tin/lead solder is much more reliable (compliance, no tin whiskers, reduced variations in joints strength,etc....) Then there is the lack of research on the total impact on the environment before putting the damn law into effect. Indications of the facts at present- zero gain or possible negative impact on earth. and there isn't anything I can do about it....

Brittle joints, poor wetting, higher heat and longer solder times compared to lead based solder means less reliability. Higher heat and longer times at higher heat can?t be as good for the semiconductors either! This is why the military has programs to convert lead-free components and use lead based solder in mission critical and military applications. What more can be said?

I have microscopic pics here that would send you running into a house afire before you would trust Pb-free junk. Plating in thru-holes breaking loose under <200 thermal cycles, complete rows of balls cracking and breaking-loose on BGAs, all creating opens in the signal path (some of these showed-up under shock and vibe testing too). Pb-free may be OK for Chinese-made junk consumer products that fail in 3 months, but not in electronics that are used in critical systems. Anyone who uses Pb-free solders has a faith-based engineering degree...

This sounds like a pretty narrow definition of reliability for a particular application. I for one am still confused as to what the real failure rate is due to tin whisker related problems on typical consumer high density packaging. Are any manufacturers actually analyzing failures and publishing results that stand up to scrutiny? Seems like cell phones, due to their high volumes, small size, and rough environment would be ideal to answer this question. So far all I find are old "prediction" articles and nothing with good factual data.

You have to be kidding... the industry has already identified the relative reliability of Pb-free joints... whether the joint is better than the SnPb or worse depends on the strain rate being applied to the joints. Everything about lead-free is costing the consumers and it will never show up as a benefit to mankind. Companies around the globe have invested millions of dollars to comply with political idiots in the EU.