I read your Trends column in the July 2006 issue of Military & Aerospace Electronics entitled “Could RoHS mean the end of COTS as we know it?”-which is in itself a trend representing the prevailing attitude of “I do not like that darned lead-free stuff for military hardware.”
Short answer: yes, RoHS is having a negative effect, but people get defensive when you start talking about their religion.
As a true IPC-610 COTS military supplier, we are transitioning to RoHS compliance boldly under the idea that “all ships will float on the suppliers who all went RoHS and the rest will sink.”
Of course, we suddenly do not know how to solder BGAs ... gulp.
You state that, “nonlead solders simply don’t work for the military, where system reliability is an imperative, not an option.”
The popular industry retort is that RoHS reliability is fine; you are just not doing it right and this is a temporary situation.
Please give us some examples. Why doesn’t nonlead solder work for the military? That sounds a lot like the vintage: Why doesn’t surface-mount work for the military? Or why doesn’t plastic IC packaging work for the military?
Mike Murphy
senior systems engineer
DTC Communications Inc.
Nashua, N.H.
[email protected]
www.dtccom.com
