Tin Whisker
Background
A failure mode is re-emerging that
has been responsible for the loss of billions of dollars worth
of satellites, missiles and other equipment - electrically
conductive 'tin whiskers'. Tin whiskers can develop under
typical operating conditions on any product type that uses
lead-free pure tin coatings. Driven by the accelerating
movement to lead-free products, tin whiskers pose major safety,
reliability and potential liability threats to all makers and
users of high reliability electronics and associated hardware.
Existing approaches are not sufficient to control tin
whiskering in high-reliability systems. The risk is here now,
and unless decisive action is taken soon to fund development
and implementation of a strategic action plan to devise
short-term stopgap procedures and medium-term investigation of
mitigation alternatives, serious consequences are inevitable.
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