Longetivety and long Term Reliability of Today´s Integrated Circuits

[boXem]

Same with me. The temperature differentials however when going from PbFree to 60/40 on hot air SMD rework are painful. They will have to pry 60/40 out of my cold dead hands...

I hate lead free. The entire process is yet another typical EU mandated phenomenally dumb idea. Incidentally, lead solder is still approved for internal implantable medical devices- not lead free...

Electromigration is the elephant in the room as densities increase both in silicon and on boards, along with lead free and smaller solder joints.

For manual work, I agree with you, lead free solder is a mess.
Concerning the EU, well, that's your opinion. Mine is that fom an industrial standpoint, lead free solder is no more a problem. Wouldn't the EU have pushed this, the tons of junk accumulated each year would be even more poisonous.
Lead free = bad was the discourse from the Detroit three at the end of the 70' when they wanted to stick with the carburator. Hopefully they were not listened.

 

[Bob-23]

I worked on a number of government programs for many years, military, NASA, and other. Lead-free solder was shown to be unreliable in the short and long term and its use in high-reliability applications was banned many years ago. There were some other issues that I do not clearly recall. Since that time it has gotten better as materials and procedures have evolved but AFAIK is still not allowed for high-rel applications. That said I have not watched closely the past few years and my current job is not related to gov't R&D.

As of 2016, military equipment and space equipment still seem to be (permanently) excluded from the RoHS-Guidelines (which regulate the use of leaded solder & other substances):

Exclusions
Permanent exclusions from RoHS include the following: military equipment, space equipment, equipment designed to be part of another piece of equipment falling outside the scope of RoHS, large scale industry tools, large scale fixed installations, means of transport for persons or goods, non-road mobile machinery, active implantable medical devices, photovoltaic panels, equipment for research and development only available business to business. As noted above, the European Commission adopts a very narrow interpretation of the categories of products to which these exclusions apply.

https://2016.export.gov/europeanunion/weeerohs/rohsinformation/index.asp

 

[restorer-john]

As of 2016, military equipment and space equipment still seem to be (permanently) excluded from the RoHS-Guidelines (which regulate the use of leaded solder & other substances

Thank goodness there are still some sane people in charge of designing and specifying the electronics for doomsday weapons.

When 'vintage' 30 year old PbFree ECUs suddenly stop cars in the middle of the freeway, or randomly deploy airbags due to crap PbFree solder failures, people might start to realize what a dumb idea it really was.

Lead free is brittle, has poor mechanical strength in the quantities used, isn't tolerant of vibration, is harder to rework, crystallizes more easily and corrodes way more aggressively than leaded solder. That is in my experience at the other end- repairing the gear, not manufacturing or selling it.

Mine is that fom an industrial standpoint, lead free solder is no more a problem.

From a production standpoint, the issues are ironed out- sure. It's everything that comes after that.

 

[Wombat]

A friend has a 1988 Mercedes 190E sedan. His cruise control failed. He removed the module and his car ran fine without it. I looked at the board and it obviously had failed electrolytic capacitors. I offered to replace them. Big mistake. The solder would not melt unless extreme heat was applied. The heat disintegrated the PCB tracks. I no longer offer to do simple PCB component fixes. I put it down to lead-free solder.

 

[boXem]

A friend has a 1988 Mercedes 190E sedan. His cruise control failed. He removed the module and his car ran fine without it. I looked at the board and it obviously had failed electrolytic capacitors. I offered to replace them. Big mistake. The solder would not melt unless extreme heat was applied. The heat disintegrated the PCB tracks. I no longer offer to do simple PCB component fixes. I put it down to lead-free solder.

Lead free solder in a 190E. C'mon! You won't find any of it in a car before the end of the 2000's. Again, prototyping/repairing with lead free is not nice, but systemic bashing of something that is basically a good thing for the environment is not nice either

 

[Bob-23]

that is basically a good thing for the environment is not nice either

I share any concern for the environment - but is there so much won if the mountains of electronics rubbish which strand in Africa, enlarge because of premature failure rates, shortened durability, weak to none repairability, weak recyclebility (how about the 'conformal coating' of the boards with urethan in order to avoid whiskers?). Is the surely/hopefully well-meant measure of forbiding the lead really thought through, or is it not rather another brick in our throwaway society? I don't have the answer, it's a question.

Some months ago, a saw a vid, in which the director of an enterprise (unfortunately couldn't find the vid anymore) explained that the problems of lead free belong to the past and have been solved, but in a sub-clause said, that the fact, that people nowadays don't use theirs devices very long, surely helps - while showing a heap of thrown away smartphones...

We'd need reliable industrywide data on the development of durability/failure rates of product categories from the lead era to the non lead era... (Probably hard to get, and 10-20 years of lead-free is too short a time-span.) Not at last: some members of the forum do have practical experience with lead-free.

 

[anmpr1]

ut is there so much won if the mountains of electronics rubbish which strand in Africa, enlarge because of premature failure rates, shortened durability,

I've not experienced many problems with hi-fi. Failures I had were on gear that was useless to me. One, a Denon cassette deck. What I presume to be the logic control failed and it would not go in to reverse or FF. But it was a cassette deck, so I didn't care. Had a nice Yamaha TX-950 tuner. A capacitor melted on the board. I was going to replace it, but I never used FM, so it went into the bin, like the cassette deck. I have record players from the early 70s that are still going strong.

On the PC side, I've had HD that failed. But mostly the machines just got too slow to use in a modern environment. My Pentium 60 with 8MB of RAM screamed on Windows 3.11, but what good is that, today?

 

[Bob-23]

I've not experienced many problems with hi-fi. Failures I had were on gear that was useless to me. One, a Denon cassette deck. What I presume to be the logic control failed and it would not go in to reverse or FF. But it was a cassette deck, so I didn't care. Had a nice Yamaha TX-950 tuner. A capacitor melted on the board. I was going to replace it, but I never used FM, so it went into the bin, like the cassette deck. I have record players from the early 70s that are still going strong.

On the PC side, I've had HD that failed. But mostly the machines just got too slow to use in a modern environment. My Pentium 60 with 8MB of RAM screamed on Windows 3.11, but what good is that, today?

Well, we'd count that as examples from the lead-era, I guess.

 

[captain paranoia]

I don't think 'premature failure' is the cause of the WEEE junkpile. It's much more to do with 'upgraditis'; gotta have the latest toy. Televisions are a prime example. Whilst 4K is very pretty, it's really not needed to watch the story. Audio is pretty bad for upgraditis, too; that's why you see so much perfectly good stuff given to charity shops, or sold to secondhand shops.

 

[Bob-23]

I don't think 'premature failure' is the cause of the WEEE junkpile. It's much more to do with 'upgraditis'; gotta have the latest toy. Televisions are a prime example. Whilst 4K is very pretty, it's really not needed to watch the story. Audio is pretty bad for upgraditis, too; that's why you see so much perfectly good stuff given to charity shops, or sold to secondhand shops.

Yes, that's probably right for many people. That's what the director, I cited, meant. And that falls partly under what I above called 'aesthecical obsolescence'. But it's not right for all people, and all product categories. And if you changed your attitude from 'upgraditis' to 'sustainable' (what we might hope) - then you'd meet the physical limitation of the product...

 

[Herbert]

I don't think 'premature failure' is the cause of the WEEE junkpile. It's much more to do with 'upgraditis'; gotta have the latest toy.

My daydream is funding a High End audio company that gives lifetime support. If there is some new stuff worth upgradeable, the customer can
sent the item in and gets the boards upgraded. Also PCB´s and mechanics would be as repairable as much as possible. Schmatics are handed to the customer. Dream on...

 

[anmpr1]

My daydream is funding a High End audio company that gives lifetime support.

ReVox offered a 'lifetime' warranty on their open reel decks (sans tape heads). What people didn't realize at the time was that they must have been talking about the 'lifetime' of the company, and not necessarily the product.

 

[Snarfie]

My NAD C370 is always in a standby mode till i start it up in the morning. Does it matter form a point of starting up temperature reaching more earlier the ideal operating temperature to use the standby mode? . Are ther any other positve point for using a standby mode?.

 

[sergeauckland]

My daydream is funding a High End audio company that gives lifetime support. If there is some new stuff worth upgradeable, the customer can
sent the item in and gets the boards upgraded. Also PCB´s and mechanics would be as repairable as much as possible. Schmatics are handed to the customer. Dream on...

Indeed. I am very dubious of any item that offers 'upgradability' after purchase. As an example, Meridian and Quad both had modular preamps where modules could be added/changed to reconfigure inputs and outputs as needs changed. Great idea, buy what you need now, and in a year or two, buy the additional modules. However the reality was that after a few years (very few years in the case of Meridian) that range was superseded and new modules were no longer available. Moving forward a number of years, and now we're encouraged to buy apps, fortunately very cheaply, but after a few years (or even months), those apps will no longer run under the upgraded OS, and/or the new OS won't run on the existing hardware. My Lexicon I-Onix U22 can't run on later than Windows 7 as no new drivers were produced. Ditto my Digigram VX pocket card that needs XP!! Why should I have to throw away otherwise excellent hardware because of software not being updated?

I had a printer that after a number of copies, I got the message that the printer had now done it's maximum number of copies and so won't work any more. Fortunately, I found a utility on the 'web that reprogrammed the printer and reset the pages counter, so it carried on for several more years.

Motor manufacturers seem to have got the idea right with 'factory fitted' options only. Years ago, dealers use to retrofit many options like heated rear windows (yes they used to be an option) but for years now, if it's not fitted at the factory, it won't get fitted by the dealer. I'm waiting for a car to tell me it's done its miles so won't start any more!

It really is depressing that on the one hand, we have stuff that's now far more reliable than was once the case, but on the other, once it fails, that's it, buy a new one. It can't be right.

Oh and by the way, I'm also hanging on to my 60/40 solder for as long as I can. Hate lead-free for repairs.

S.

 

[Bob-23]

My daydream is funding a High End audio company that gives lifetime support. If there is some new stuff worth upgradeable, the customer can
sent the item in and gets the boards upgraded. Also PCB´s and mechanics would be as repairable as much as possible. Schmatics are handed to the customer. Dream on...

'Upgraditis' is a disease, and as such curable. From a certain point on sound is not getting better, no matter what you invest in upgrades (speakers & headphones excluded, of course). And reaching that point doesn't have to be very expensive, as Amir's measurements show.

That's exactly it: devices have to be durable, repair-friendly, built with respect for the workers and the environment and, today: data/privacy protecting, and yes, the schematics should be open, as it once was. (I build my amps myself, with the best parts possible, can repair them anytime and they last decades. With 60/40, too.)

 

[Bob-23]

My daydream is funding a High End audio company that gives lifetime support. If there is some new stuff worth upgradeable, the customer can
sent the item in and gets the boards upgraded. Also PCB´s and mechanics would be as repairable as much as possible. Schmatics are handed to the customer. Dream on...

...your dream... of course, soldering is not everybody's business, but the computer part of a sound system, including the dac/soundcard, can relatively easy be, at least, approached to your/our dream: get a solid case, a good motherboard incl. cpu, a high quality soundcard and a quiet ventilator - and it's done.

There are lots of vids how to plug the parts together, it's not that difficult. If the cpu fails, just install another one; if there's a complete new generation of cpus you want, you install/plug in a new mainboard plus cpu (only), if a ram fails, it's easy to install a new one and/or bigger one... Such a system can last for decades, easily be repaired, 'upgraded' if you will - at lowest possible costs, because the rest of the device would remain intact and woudn't have to be thrown away...

There are btw. companies who do that for you, you can you choose the parts, but, of course, it's better to know how to do it yourself, if you exchange anything. But the first installation may be done by such a company (the company I know doesn's charge much for that), further modifications are easier than a complete installation...

 

[sergeauckland]

...your dream... of course, soldering is not everybody's business, but the computer part of a sound system, including the dac/soundcard, can relatively easy be, at least, approached to your/our dream: get a solid case, a good motherboard incl. cpu, a high quality soundcard and a quiet ventilator - and it's done.

There are lots of vids how to plug the parts together, it's not that difficult. If the cpu fails, just install another one; if there's a complete new generation of cpus you want, you install/plugin a new mainboard plus cpu (only), if a ram fails, it's easy to install a new one and/or bigger one... Such a system can last for decades, easily be repaired, 'upgraded' if you will - at lowest possible costs, because the rest of the device would remain intact and woudn't have to be thrown away...

There are btw. companies who do that for you, you can you choose the parts, but, of course, it's better to know how to do it yourself, if you exchange anything. But the first installation may be done by such a company (the company I know doesn's charge much for that), further modifications are easier than a complete installation...

I think you miss the point. If you "install a new mainboard plus CPU", what happens to the old one? It gets thrown away as it has no resale value, nor can it be reused. Ditto with memory. If a memory module fails, it can't be repaired, only replaced. It's treating modules as components, like a resistor or transistor once was. At one time, individual components were replaceable, then it's complete modules but manufacturers don't make them available as spares, and with modern mobile devices, it's effectively one integrated item....can one even identify the memory or CPU in a mobile phone? We've become a totally throw-away society, and I think that's to be regretted.

S.

 

[Bob-23]

I regret that, too, and I share the diagnosis of the 'throwaway-society' (look above)... And I wouldn't so easily install a new mainboard/cpu if the old one still worked, btw. That was meant as a bridge for those with 'upgraditis'.

But all these complaints, what do they help, there's probably no way back to the non-modularity, is it? So we have to do the best with the existing possibilities. (And was it ever possible to repair a memory larger than, say, a few bits?)

The way I offered seems to me me the best compromise with the existing reality. High quality parts in a high quality case - which all can be exchanged, as single ones, without throwing away the rest of it, what you usually have to do with today's devices. That's as durabable and as repairable as it can be.

On the other side, you have the existing desktops, usually made with the cheapest possible parts, and lack of room in their cheap cases - not repair-friendly at all. And then you have these glued-together all-in-ones, which you can't even open (look at ifixit).

Of course, the mobiles are a huge problem. Btw., there was a dutch company 'Fairphone', (don't know if it still exists), that reintroduced at least some modularity in them. And when I see the people handling these devices, without the slightest idea of how to protect their data, well, we call'em here 'portable gestapo', because every step of yours is getting tracked. And did you know that at least half of the population of the eastern lowland gorillas have been shot in the last 25 years, because of the coltan in the mobiles which is found in the gorilla area... All these reasons made me avoid the mobiles, but, of course, many people probably can't, and there's a lot of social pressure, if your son's the only one in the classroom without one...

The point for me, privatly, is, to build and repair as much as possible myself, opamps on sockets, so that they can be replaced, through-hole work, in which you generally can replace parts quite well, that's durable and repair-friendly. And it's a lot of fun.

And, of course, we have to critique the throw-away society, and look for ways-out, wherever they are! I'm the last one, who doesn't do that.

 

[Wombat]

Lead free solder in a 190E. C'mon! You won't find any of it in a car before the end of the 2000's. Again, prototyping/repairing with lead free is not nice, but systemic bashing of something that is basically a good thing for the environment is not nice either

I stand corrected. Other than lead-free solder used for potable water plumbing( from around 1986) it was early 2000s that some Japanese electronics companies started using lead-free solder. The car industry started using lead-reduced solder ~ 2005 moving to led-free at the end of the decade.

The solder I encountered had a vary high melting point that I hadn't experienced until I met lead-free solder. My bad guess.

History:

 

[captain paranoia]

Ditto with memory. If a memory module fails, it can't be repaired, only replaced.

Good luck fixing a broken bit on a core memory... Try running Windows 10 on a Sinclair ZX80...

Integration and non-replaceability are price you (don't) pay for small, cheap, low-power, reliable electronics.

Exponential growth in performance of digital electronics over the last 50 years means continual obsolescence. That silicon is sand; the only thing worth recycling is the precious metals, and that's what is recycled.