As a contract manufacturer committed to expanding our lead-free capabilities, CCSD and our sister company, CCIN, have assembled a lead-free manufacturing services team led by our Director of Engineering that is very competent in lead-free manufacturing. If you have RoHS compliant requirements for your products, CCSD has the right team for material acquisition and process implementation.

We are currently producing lead-free surface mount, through-hole, and mixed-technology assemblies for our existing customers. We have a lead-free wave-soldering system for RoHS compliance. Also, we require certification from component suppliers on RoHS compliant parts.

While there are a number of considerations in the move to lead-free electronics, some of the most important are...

1) Lead-free reflow and wave-soldering temperatures are significantly higher than for tin-lead products. Because of this, many existing parts are not compatible with lead-free production - unless they are moved to a (more costly) manual assembly process.

2) Many components are not yet available in lead-free packaging. Because of the temperature issue described above and the lack of availability of some components, it is virtually a requirement to re-design any product that is moving to lead-free. This becomes an opportune time to move to 100% SMT packaging (or at least limit through-hole technology to intrusive reflow). We are prepared to work with our customers to re-design their products to fit into the lead-free environment.

3) Lead-free products can have a different appearance than was normally associated with cold solder joints in the past. The IPC has released standards for measuring the quality of lead-free products IPC-A-610D. All work performed at CCSD is inspected to these requirements.

4) In Europe, the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) states: "Beginning 1 July, 2006, new electrical and electronic equipment put on the market shall not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)." There is some debate as to whether lead-free solder joints are less reliable in large temperature ranges. For this reason, it appears that the automotive, medical (implanted and infected products), IT/Telecommunications servers, large scale stationary industrial tools, and aerospace/military sectors will initially be exempt from the July, 2006 European lead-free mandate. Spare parts are exempt. The requirement is placed on any company selling products under their name into Europe. In addition, there is a similar requirement already in existence in Japan. CCSD can accommodate both lead and lead-free parts and manufacturing.