Tin Whiskers Out With The Claws, Bricking Satellites and Pacemakers
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
on 10. 7.07
There's something sprouting in every electronic device that you own, and it's not in the oh-happy-garden-let's-pick-the-fruit kind of way. In fact, this little something could very well end up bricking your device. They are called tin whiskers, and they pop up without warning from tin solder and finishes deep inside electronics.
While scientists debate their cause, they agree on one thing: small amounts of lead mixed with the tin prevent the whiskers from forming. Lead, however, is a serious health concern, and last year Europeans barred the toxic metal from most electronics. Similar measures are being considered or are already in place in other countries, including Japan, China, South Korea, Argentina, Australia and the United States. Some have likened the situation to a Y2K sort of scenario; since they take years to develop, you might just finishing paying off that HDTV before it goes belly-up.
Clearly, the whiskers are more than a nuisance. In the 1980s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalled some pacemakers because of a high failure rate caused by tin whiskers. The whiskers took out a satellite in 1999, causing 40 million pagers to stop working and halting ATMs nationwide. Seven nuclear power plants have been temporarily shut down after tin whiskers triggered false alarms and NASA, who has their own database of whisker-related failures, discovered millions of tin whiskers in an electronic box that controls the space shuttle Endeavour's engine.
Many types of electronics are exempt from the law (military, medical devices, etc.), and exemptions are also granted when alternatives to the hazardous materials don't exist yet. But it's getting harder to buy the leaded parts as manufacturers react to the environmental legislation. It's a tough measure; was the EU too hasty? :: Yahoo
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I read somewhere that the EU determined that 80% of lead in landfills comes from lead acid batteries, while less than 1% comes from electronics, but they exempted batteries because there is no good alternative to lead-acid batteries. Sounds like some pretty bad legislation to me.
There are indeed whisker-less soldering alternatives. But of course not all old Chinese production lines with automatic soldering bots are set up to use those alternative solders. So, some re-tooling will be needed.
The RoHS edict on phase out gives competitive advantage in European markets to those manufacturers most willing to "green up" their production. You may recall that China does not ascribe to RoHS. There might even be a little political push back against RoHS by those so-affected.
Underscoring my major point: reliable, tested lead solder alternatives are available at cost. As wilth all phase outs, there will be winners and losers. I can think of no better way to green up our electronics than to have RoHS force a little "home sourcing" .
Actually, China has published its own RoHS law...and it is not nearly so clear as in the EU that medical, military and other application are exempted.
RoHS is definitely an example of laws circumventing the useful statistical database of product use hours or user cycles by forcing every machine to adopt relatively untested technology. Only time will tell whether the substitutes, which appear robust under accelerated cycle testing, really hold up to the wear and tear of true-life circumstances. In a world increasingly reliant on technologies, parallel systems and disaster recovery planning takes on a new importance.
Is it worth it to get the lead out? My vote: better to manage the risks of a new generation of products than to accept the risks which are unmanageable in the case of end-of-life lead impacts.
Thanks for writing about this. Tin whiskers seem to be a direct result of lead-free initiatives, supposedly a green movement. But is the environmental cost of the bricked electronics less than the savings from using less let?
I would say quite likely at current rates of consumption; it seems to mainly be a problem for high reliability, long life system. While the formation of whiskers isn't fully understood (to the best of my knowledge, as of 6 months ago), they are an increasing problem with age of the device. And most consumer electronics devices have such a short lifespan that it won't be an issue. I think that's the problem of more immediate concern, but it's more difficult to solve. It's a combination of forced obsolescence and technological progress which forces us to buy new gadgets, and businesses are unlikely to stop either.