RoHS Design Services

What is the RoHS directive?: Removal of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) is a directive enacted by the European Union on July 1, 2006 mandating the removal of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment being sold into EU member countries. Some of the substances on the EU banned list include lead, mercury, cadmium, and chromium.
How could RoHS affect my sales?: Non-compliance can have a potentially dramatic effect on your ability to sell products into the EU. According to the directive products that are non-compliant could be banned from sale in EU member countries. Products that are found in an EU country to be in non-compliance could be confiscated leaving you without any recourse. In addition to the EU, Japan has passed lead-free regulations and California is examining legislation similar to RoHS. Simply stated you must be considering lead-free/RoHS compliant designs for all of your future products.
What does RoHS mean for my design process?: The RoHS directive affects your designs at all phases. It begins with identifying all of the components of your system that can be affected by the RoHS directive from resistors and capacitors to bareprinted circuit boards. Once the components are identified you must find suitable alternatives, update your design, and test the changes. Clearly updating your design for the RoHS directive can be costly and time consuming.
How can Embedded Planet help?: Embedded Planet has already begun producing RoHS compliant designs and can bring this experience to your project in several ways. You can purchase an existing Embedded Planet RoHS design knowing that all of the parts and process issues have been solved or you can contract with us to provide RoHS design services. We have already done much of the work converting designs, parts libraries, and processes and as a result the cycle for us is much shorter.