Mar 04, 2002
"One need only look at the challenges of lead-free solder to understand the importance of solder to the electronics industry supply chain," said Peter Palmer, Alpha Metals' vice president of global marketing. "By working together in a council within IPC, we can create programs such as market research or standardization that we could never do alone."
The SPVC held a formative meeting in August of 2001. During IPC SMEMA Council APEX� in January of this year, the Council met again to outline the objectives of its four subcommittees: Market Research, Lead-Free, Cooperative Buying and Industry Awareness.
The Council's Market Research subcommittee, led by David Thorp, Kester Solder, plans to launch a statistical program for solder manufacturers in 2002.
The goal of the Lead-Free subcommittee, chaired by Karl Seelig, AIM vice president of technology, is to "resolve the confusion regarding alloy choice and is devoted to achieving a worldwide consensus on the issue."
Chairman of the Cooperative Buying Subcommittee Rick Short, Indium, said his subcommittee's intentions are to explore cooperative buying efforts for solder manufacturers.
Finally, the Industry Awareness Subcommittee, chaired by Palmer, intends to investigate programs like Web-based Electronic Data Interchange; a Solder Alloys Database; Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)-Environmental Requirements and support and participation in IPC's Lead-Free Conference.
The SPVC's next meeting will be held April 30, 2002, prior to the Council's participation in the IPC and JEDEC International Conference on Lead-Free Electronic Assemblies, held April 30-May 2, 2002, in San Jose, CA.
For more information, contact Tony Hilvers, IPC vice president of industry programs, at AnthonyHilvers@ipc.org or 847-790-5337.
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