|
Articles:
Technical Briefs Home
The President's Corner
Molding Compound Lawsuit Quietly
Settled
Lead-Free and the Military / Aerospace
Dilemma
GEIA Hot Solder Dip Specification
Ionic Contamination at the Component
Level
Column Grid Array: The Solution
to BGA Reliability Problems
|
Molding Compound Lawsuit Quietly Settled
Recently, a $125 million out-of-court settlement was reached between Fujitsu
Limited, Cirrus Logic, Amkor Technologies and Sumitomo Bakelite Co. This case
revolved around the use of elemental (red) phosphorus in place of bromine and
antimony as fire retardants in the molding compound in order to make the molding
compound more “environmentally friendly”. Claims were made that the subject
molding compound (under certain conditions) emitted an acid that caused
Fujitsu’s hard drives to fail. According to news articles, millions of IC’s have
been produced between 1996 and 2002 utilizing this molding compound. This same
phosphorus-based molding compound has also been involved in other lawsuits.
Organic phosphorus-based flame-retardants have now largely replaced the
inorganic (red) phosphorus since the reaction products tend to be less
corrosive.
Six Sigma’s reliability department recommends that all plastic components,
with date codes between ‘96 and ’02 used in high reliability applications,
be examined.
For more information*, please contact Six Sigma’s
Failure
Analysis/Reliability Department.
* Due to legal restrictions, disclosure of technical information
will be limited.
Six Sigma: Subscribe
|
