IC Failures Linked to Resin Series? 284
MEW writes "According to this article, 'the semiconductor industry began using red phosphorus as a flame retardant instead of the Br-based compound it had used for years,' due to environmental concerns. By July 2002, 1000 tons of the stuff was used for about a billion chips, when they stopped due to high component failures. In particular Sumitomo Bakelite caused rampant failures in Fujitsu disk drives. There's still a lot of Sumitomo Bakelite out there, and we may see the worst of it soon, as components start to fail prematurely. This was posted by Spaceman on Macintouch who says that the bad material accounts for 'half the world's supply of 'IC Plastics'' and can result in 'sudden or premature end of life.'"
Re:red phoshorous??? (Score:3, Informative)
sh*t (Score:5, Informative)
Note to oneself : Back Up Computer tonight (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Premature component failure in healthcare... (Score:4, Informative)
Any equipment, from a single transistor to a microprocessor, that is used in life-support systems have a whole different qualification process, and the parameters are much stricter. I know that space-qualified chips often have their own fabrication process that is different than normal chips to make them radiation-hardened; I wouldn't be suprised if chips that are meant to be put into someone's body are fabricated using an older, more stable process, which wouldn't have had this change in the first place.
And anything that doesn't make money when it's not available (like an ATM machine) will have scads of redundancy built in. If chips are dying in the field, odds are it's only resulting in more service calls, and perhaps marginally more downtime.
I would think that some of the newer chips for game systems and PCs would be the first to show any ill effects from this problem, since they're likely to be in the newest processes to get the best transistor density. But it all depends on who fabbed the chip (which in all likelihood is different than who's logo appears on it), and whether they were using this process change at the time.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:sh*t (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Space Shuttle Blew up due to Environmental Conc (Score:5, Informative)
The foam on the last space shuttle was used because it was more environmentally friendly, even though it was inferior. At least that's what I read (just put 'space shuttle foam environment' into google).
I expect you read this [capmag.com] article in Capitalist Magazine [capmag.com]. The title of the article, "Earth Worshippers Cause Death in Space", really brings home the high levels of dispassionate reporting and journalistic integrity enjoyed by the magazine. Truly, everything they say must be true.
Re:Damn the irony! (Score:3, Informative)
They got rid of CFCs, which is undoubtedly a good thing. Interestingly, the #1 ozone layer killer now is entirely natural: farts. A cow produces around a gallon of methane per day, no idea how much the average human farts during 24 hours.
Protecting the environment is always a good thing, however, people should see the entire picture first before starting nonsensical actions. If the attempt to preserve nature turns out to cause even more harm to it, then this attempt should honestly be marked as a failure -- instead of proceeding with it for political reasons.
For the SciFi readers, I (again) recommend "Fallen Angels" by Larry Niven et al.
Re:red phoshorous??? (Score:4, Informative)
here [sigmaaldrich.com] is a link to a chemicals supplier. notice the risk statements: R11 = Highly flammable, R16 = Explosive when mixed with oxidizing substances
What this is (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently red phospherus enables an internal short, probably by reacting with the resin to make a carbon channel. This is my best guess, given the info we have.
The majority of US chip companies these days are just design labs. They hire Asian chip foundries to actually render their designs to product, and it appears that they are the manufacturer. More and more the large chipmakers are doing this too -- farming out production. This new process would be used on commodity chips first, like logic and memory. Unlikely to be in high-end chips like processors, A/D, etc.
Some here deride the environmental reasoning for the change. It's pretty stupid to not care about dioxin, no matter where it is. These Exxon fascists would also say that global warming is a myth, because it's cold today... well it's warmer than it was 20 years ago. In about 30 years, you'll be paying for dikes to protect New York and Los Angeles from being flooded, ignorant bastard. Weather will be erratic and catastrophic. But that's not your problem today, now is it? Anti-environmental/anti-intellectual clods should be the ones who suffer for their short-sighted ignorant views, not the world as a whole. But unfortunately that's not how things work.
Re:Damn the irony! (Score:4, Informative)
And really, boiling down the two shuttle failures to material replacements? Perhaps a more important factor is its design [spaceref.com].
Classic Case: McDonalds (Score:4, Informative)
"In November 1990 the McDonald's Corporation, largely in response to pressure from the public and from environmental groups, made the decision to replace Styrofoam "clamshell" hamburger containers with paperboard boxes."
Not to mention the paper box insulates poorly, requiring more heat-lamp energy; and because paper has to be treated to repel grease, it decomposes slower than normal paper, and could not be recycled like the plastic-based styrofoam could.
Re:What this is (Score:4, Informative)
The whole warming measured since the late 19 century, is only 1 degree Fahrenheit. (Among other sources, try EPA: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/cont ent/climateuncertainties.html ) That's it. 1 degree Fahrenheit in more than a _century_.
So if we're talking "warmer than it was 20 years ago", we're talking a difference so small that it won't even show up on your thermometer.
EPA's own site again says "IPCC projects further global warming of 2.2-10F (1.4-5.8C) by the year 2100." They also repeat several times that it's _"uncertainty"_, or "likely, but not certain". So even taking the most pessimistic figure there, you will _not_ need dams in 30 years.
What environmentalists conveniently forget to tell you, however, includes:
- Satellite data actually indicates a global _cooling_ over the last two decades. So there goes your "warmer than it was 20 years ago" myth.
- In fact, out of that scary "century of warming", about 70% of the warming happened before 1940. Go figure. So all this wasteful industry sprouting everywhere, actually _reduced_ the heating rate?
- There's plenty of evidence that weather has been even warmer before -- e.g., peaking around 1000 A.D. -- without any industrial emissions. And wouldn't you know it, back then, the ice caps did _not_ melt and submerge the world in water within 30 years, like in your horror story. It takes one helluva lot more time, and one helluva lot more heat to melt any signifficant portion of those.
- A century of data is a spit in the bucket on a planet where ice age vs warming cycles take 100,000 years. And where by any logical reasoning, we're stil on the rising phase from the last ice age which ended 16,000 years ago.
I.e., so far: You're taking data from 1/1000 or 0.1% of the cycle length, and whose amplitude is known to be less than the normal fluctuations over the last millenium (itself just 1% of the cycle.) I.e., you make a whole scare story based on the _noise_, not the signal.
But furthermore:
- There's strong evidence that the heating and cooling cycles actually follow changes in the sun's brightness. (E.g., see how the recent flares caused a warm winter. Now think smaller changes. Fractions of a percent per decade.) I.e., pay attention: it's getting warmer when and because the sun sends more warmth this way, not because of scary greenhouse gasses.
- Only 2% of greenhouse gas emissions are from man-made sources. So even if the whole humanity stopped using cars, burning anything, and even breathing, it would still make buggerall difference.
- A lot of those "feel good" environmental measures actually use _more_ energy. (E.g., yes, melting a bottle, compared to melting sand to make a new one). A lot of those cause _more_ polution. (E.g., cleaning the used paper of ink.) They aren't there to save the planet, they're there just to make some retards feel good about themselves.
So what do we have here? You actually have no clue what you're talking about, you make some false predictions that aren's supported by any data (not even the environmentalists' handpicked set), and you call anyone who disagrees with something unproven "These Exxon fascists".
No, if there are "fascists" out there, it's self-appointed inquisitors like you. The ones who don't care about science, nor about the scientific process. Science is actually _supposed_ to question everything. You've got your dogma, and everyone who dares question it, is automatically a heretic who should suffer for his transgressions. (As spelled out in your message.)
Sorry, dude. That kind of attitude may have been all the rage in the 1600's, but today it's just sad.
Re:It's Not "Good", It's A Race To The Bottom (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, come on. Thrifty shopping does not harm the economy. If I save $5 by finding a better deal at Walmart or anywhere else, I now have $5 left over which I'll either spend on something else or invest. Your argument is one of the many forms of the broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org].
Re:It's Not "Good", It's A Race To The Bottom (Score:3, Informative)
Broken window fallacy: some kid throws a rock through my window. I pay $100 to have it repaired. This is good for the economy because the window repairman makes an additional $100.
Walmart-is-bad theory: I buy a widget at Walmart for $10. This hurts the economy, because if I'd bought from the local Steve's Sprockets for $15 then Steve would have made an additional $5.
Both are wrong, and for exactly the same reason; they fail to account for what I would have done with the $100 had my window not been broken, and what I will do with the $5 that I saved at Walmart.
The economics of Wal-mart is a textbook case of predatory pricing.
Walmart is earning a profit, so they're clearly not selling below cost. Perhaps you're claiming that they're a monopsony (buying monopoly), which is easily disproven by the abundance of alternatives. If their market share ever approaches Microsoft levels, I'll take another look. In the meantime, lower prices are good.
Re:It's Not "Good", It's A Broken Window (Score:3, Informative)
And I'm saying that's not the case. The money saved by consumers by shopping at Walmart doesn't just disappear; it's spent on other stuff or invested.