RoHS Compliant PCB: What does it mean?

RoHs stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances and it’s used to ensure that the printed circuit boards are manufactured using environment-friendly substances.

The European Legislation put a ban on materials like lead and tin. Lead and tin are the two most widely used materials in constructing computer related products like printed circuit boards (PCB). Therefore, PCB fabrication houses have begun using lead-free materials.

The Challenge

This legislation came into existence on July 1, 2006 and Printed Circuit Board Production Houses faced the challenge of incorporating lead-free materials in their manufacturing process. They scrambled to find and test environment-friendly materials in compliance with the RoHS requirements. They found that they could use materials like immersion gold, immersion silver, and immersion tin to create PCB circuit boards.

These three materials are now the most commonly used and contain no lead in them. They are all environment-friendly, have long shelf life, great bond ability, and they meet all of RoHs requirements. These materials are used to manufacture automobiles, PCB, consumer electronics, and mobile phone communications. When RoHs implemented these requirements, it was a challenge for manufacturing companies to include lead-free resources.

The challenges they faced were:

1.       Using higher melting temperatures for melting solder.

2.       Using a lead-free solder to bind and repair the materials.

3.       Lead-free solders are commonly mistaken as being faulty to an untrained eye because they look different from a solder that contains lead.

In order to be considered RoHs compliant, no component of the PCB should contain any of the banned materials.

Why is Lead Prohibited?

You don’t realize it, but a lot of electronic equipment is thrown out and find its way into your house and bodies. The electronic waste being accumulated at junkyards is turning into hazardous material. Acid rain liquefies the lead found in electronic equipments and when it rains, the materials become mixed up with your drinking water. This sort of mixture can lead to many health problems for you.If you drink tainted water then your organs will deteriorate. More exposure to lead leads to numbness in fingers, ankles, and wrists.

Purchase RoHs-Compliant PCBs

Your organization should always purchase environmental friendly products to use in their electronic products. You want your consumers to know that your organization cares about the environment. The company you hire to manufacture components from should meet RoHs requirements. Go green by using lead-free materials for your electronics.