What is RoHS

In a simple word, RoHS, also known as Lead-Free, stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances. RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC restricts the use of six hazardous materials found in electrical and electronic products. All applicable products in the EU market after July 1, 2006 must pass RoHS compliance. RoHS impacts the entire electronics industry. 

The limitation of the six hazardous materials are 

„h  Cadmium (Cd): 100 ppm 

„h  Mercury (Hg): 100 ppm 

„h  Lead (Pb): 1000 ppm 

„h  Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB): 1000 ppm 

„h  Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE): 1000 ppm 

„h  Hexavalent Chromium (CrVI): 1000 ppm

In order to produce a RoHS-compliance product, the raw materials and production equipments required are more expensive. For example, the wire / soldering are usually contain lead. However, you can not have lead in a RoHS-compliance product; the wire would have to contain silver instead of lead. Therefore, the soldering is more expensive. The soldering gun has to reach higher temperature in order to melt the silver-containing soldering paste. Those are high-price equipments. There are more. The manufacturer also has to have a control system to differentiae the RoHS product and standard product. The material can not be mixed, and usually require a separate warehouse, dedicated production line, etc. It is a long and expensive path.

Starting March 2005, Bliss Electronic China started preparing for RoHS production. (for detail, please see RoHS Upgrade Road Map section in “QA lab”) In August 2005, Bliss delivered 1^st RoHS-compliance product to Germany . Up to June 2006, we have produced more than 30 different RoHS-compliance products. With recently purchased RoHS material scanner, Bliss QA lab can perform preliminary test for RoHS-compliance without going to third party lab. This saves time and money for our client.