IPC/Soldertec Conference on lead-free electronics – an international success!

Citation

(2003), "IPC/Soldertec Conference on lead-free electronics – an international success!", Microelectronics International, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.2003.21820cac.001

IPC/Soldertec Conference on lead-free electronics – an international success!

IPC/Soldertec Conference on lead-free electronics – an international success!

Keywords: IPC, Soldertec, Lead-free soldering, Conferences

Around 200 attendees from all around the world greatly enjoyed the recent conference on lead-free electronics "Towards implementation of the RoHS Directive", jointly sponsored by IPC- Association Connecting Electronics Industries™ (USA), and Soldertec at Tin Technology Ltd (UK). All the delegates left feeling fully informed about the requirements, challenges, and opportunities involved in a change to lead-free electronics production. The conference is likely to be repeated next year. For anyone who missed this year's important event, copies of the proceedings are available on CD-rom for just £125 (around 180) by e-mailing info@lead-free.org

The event was opened by Marianne Klingbeil, Head of the Sustainable Resources Unit of the European Commission, and Steve Andrews from the UK Department of Trade and Industry, who outlined the requirements of RoHS and how the legislation would be implemented throughout the EU.

Eddie Hernandez-Sosa, Hewlett-Packard Caribe, Puerto Rico said "It was great to hear the legislator speak. I now have a much clearer understanding of why RoHS is important to Europe. The networking at coffee and lunch really helped share the understanding."

The conference was indeed a great networking opportunity, and a truly international event, with representatives from every member state of the EU, significant numbers from the US, Japan, and delegates from as far a field as Australia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

The high quality technical programme provided all the information required for successful lead- free production, as well as news of the latest industry developments. The high quality of papers and presenters was particularly noted and appreciated by everyone attending. Many key industry experts participated, including Ken Suetsugu (Plate 1), Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, leader of the company wide lead-free implementation programme which has recently achieved 100 per cent lead-free solder usage for all Panasonic production sites. Other experts included Rob Horsley of Celestica, Dongkai Shangguan from Flextronics, Vivek Gupta of Intel, Malcolm Warwick from Loctite-Multicore, Jennie Hwang from H-Technologies Group and John Lau of Agilent Technologies.

Plate 1 Keynote speaker, Ken Suetsugu, Matsushita Electric Industrial company

Plans are already being made for a similar event next year. Michael Muller, Polytron-Print, Germany said "As a PCB fabricator the conference has helped me to fully understand my customers needs. Will come again next year."

Martin Tarr of SAMC commented "A very worthwhile experience: the numbers attending showed that people are at last waking up to lead- free; the quality of the speakers, and the breadth and depth of expertise evident from the audience contributions, combined to make the conference content technically challenging – like its subject!"

The conference provided the ideal opportunity for production experiences from different regions of the world to be shared. Delegates left the event well informed and ready to make further progress towards full implementation of lead-free production.

The conference was held in the Conrad Hotel, Brussels, on 10-12 June 2003. More details can be found from the Soldertec Web site www.lead-free.org