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The Tin-Whisker Menace

Posted by timothy on from the crisis-of-the-moment dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Fortune has an article about how the recent environmental push to completely eliminate lead from electronic components and wiring may eventually lead to the next Y2K problem of slowly-growing tin whiskers short-circuiting equipment.""

4 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I wonder... by notany · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is whre progress is going. For example Prof. David Patterson (inventor of RAID and first MISC instruction set computers) has been trying to do this many years. See IRAM

    There is some practical problems.

    1. Low yield. Failure rate grows with bigger chips. Makes them more expensive.
    2. Harder to make. Different prosesses for making memory and logic (this has been done already of course).
    3. Heat problem. It's easier to cool separaate chunks of prosessor, graphics processor and memory.
    4. Upgrading. New usb spec, make new mask. Upgrade graphics prosessor, make new mask. New mask for every memory configuration. Uh.

    We may get close eventually. Practicality may dictate that we end up with 1-3 chips per home PC. Maybe optical connections between.

    My time estimate for this to happen is 10-30 years from now.

    --
    Dyslexics have more fnu.
  2. Forget tin Whiskers, Nanotechnology will kill. by d3nali · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The issue with tin whiskers is that they are so small and invasive. Next to this problem however nanotechnology will make it look trivial.

    The small particles being produced with nanotechnology concepts will enable it to invade and affect the body in ways that connot possibly be handeled by todays technology or our immune systems.

    I'm all for technology but we need some protections before a company starts spewing these waste/production nanoparticles off into the enviroment in order to save in producing costs for that lastest flat screen tv using carbon nanotubes.

  3. Temperature cycling by NoseBag · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I worked in the E-Warfare division of (deleted) we ran into this issue whenever we used brass prototype packages to house circuits. The cause of the whisker growth (in brass) was the repeated temperature cycling (TC) of the package. Apparently in the presence of the TC, the tin in the brass preferentially crystalized out of the brass in whisker form and pushed out of the sides. Kinda neat, actually, except for the occasional power supply short. We found that a solid nickel-plate or copper-plate fixed the problem nicely.

    --
    Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
  4. Re:Let's talk reality here by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The lead in solder accounts for a very, VERY tiny percentage of the lead we use and dispose of.

    It seems to me that the whole lead issue is addressed very erratically. The solder in a circuit board is a huge problem, but anybody can go down to Wal-Mart and buy a tin of airgun pellets containing about a 1/4 pound of pure lead and spray it all over their back yard. Lead encased in computer monitor glass is a huge crisis, but nobody talks much about 36-inch TV tubes, and if you shop for wine glasses some of them brag about the the fact that they contain 24% lead.

    It seems to me that all the focus goes on new types of products, while many old products that use lead are ignored.