From One Engineer to Another

900 or 1000 ppm?

Thursday, October 23, 2008 by Tim Jensen [Tim Jensen]

There is a significant amount of discussion on what should constitute halogen-free. Most camps have leaned toward the 900 ppm of Br and 900 ppm of Cl which already exists in the IPC PCB halogen-free specification. Other camps suggest that it should just align with the RoHS restrictions of 1000 ppm of each.

From a technical perspective, there probably isn't much of a difference between the 900 ppm and 1000 ppm. It seems to me that 1000 ppm would be cleaner, but I don't have a strong opinion either way. We will soon see where the maximum level of allowed halogens falls.

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Comments for 900 or 1000 ppm?

Monday, May 18, 2009 by C.B.Katzko:
I think it would be better to standardize on the harmonized IEC, JPCA & IPC requirements of 900ppm Br/Cl individually and 1500ppm combined for several reasons: 1. It was decided by industry consensus 2. It has the support of major OEMs and materials supppliers who drive standards 3. NGO stakeholders (so far) appear to support these standards 4. There is no significant technical difference 5. EU-RoHS compliance is assured Is the EU-RoHS TAC the right party to lead on technical standards of shoulod the industry demonstrate leadership? Do we really need a repeat of the foot-dragging resistance against Lead-free standards? Leading companines already support these standards and have, in many cases, developed solutions. Would it not be a better use of time to focus energy on solving the technical problems meeting these standards in critical appplications than debating it further?

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