VIA Announces Lead-Free Motherboard 347
linuxprox writes "VIA announced today that their AS-1210 motherboard will be the world's first lead-free motherboard. 'The transition to 'green' manufacturing for VIA has been very smooth and we have been able to ship lead-free processors and chipsets since the end of last year,' said Richard Brown, Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. 'The AS-1210 clearly demonstrates the technology leadership of VIA and Yamashita in being the first to market with a lead-free motherboard that meets the requirements of the international market.'"
more to read (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2
And more from Intel:m [intel.com]
http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/leadfree.ht
And more information from AMD:u rces/0,,30_182_4040,00.html [amd.com]
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalReso
Disclosure: I don't work for, or own stock in AMD or Intel. I haven't purchased an Intel chip since the Pentium came out.
-ted
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not qualified to say how this can be safely disposed of, or whether it really needs to, but an awful lot of old electronics do end up in public landfills and other locations where they could potentially leach(sp?) into groundwater. It's something worth considering when people are upgrading their electronics and computers annually.
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Interesting)
The mix of tin and lead in solder varies somewhat depending on the application, with 60/40 and 70/30 being common. I was curious myself about the claim of "Lead-Free" since every solder joint in the system would have to have lead, right? From VIA's Lead-Free Manufacturing [via.com.tw] page:
Of course, I don't know what everyone's got against lead. If all the claims you hear were true then my old man (who breathes in solder fumes for up to 80
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, though, people aren't generally in direct contact with the lead contained in their motherboards, cards, hard disks, etc. The problem is supposed to occur at disposal time when it is alleged that lead and other heavy metals leach out of the refuse and in to the water table, and hence into the local water supply/food chain. With recycling companies breaking-up computers and other electronic devices into the
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but that's mixed in the glass, and isn't going anywhere for the next several millenia or more. In several hundred million years when that glass gets subducted under the mantle and remelts, I doubt humans will be around to worry.
EU & DOD mandate for future (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Informative)
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:5, Informative)
However, Roentgen tubes use much higher voltages (100 kV at least) than CRTs (about 25 kV), and so the intensity of X rays is much lower. The screen itself, made of thick glass with a trace amount of lead, is sufficient to stop them. I tried to measure the radiation at the screen with a dosimeter, and got nothing except the usual ambient radiation (10 micro Roentgen / hour or so).
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:4, Insightful)
Stick to programming. Your physics isn't all that hot.
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Informative)
The semiconductor company I work for has pretty high volume (nowhere near intel though...) and we went lead-free not too long ago. Customers demanded it, so we gave it to em.
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Insightful)
So quit your whining, cleaner components are good, whether your talking traces or massive amounts. For everything that happens there's always someone whining about it.
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:5, Insightful)
political correctness has met the IT sector once again. For gosh sakes, what's the problem? I don't plan to eat my motherboard - you might argue "it's thrown away one day", but some miniscule trace of lead found in the solder isn't going to hurt anything - more goes into the environment when i lose a sinker fishing than when I throw away a dozen motherboards.
There's a reason why my State banned the sale of lead sinkers [outdoorcentral.com]. For gosh sakes, what's the problem with trying to be more environmentality friendly? If VIA can sell a lead-free motherboard that works well at a decent price and make a profit while doing so why is this political correctness? It's being a good corporate citizen. Why is this a bad thing?
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3)
Capitalism eats away at the communistic principle of hiding production costs where the Party collects its dues, the factory, obscuring the full costs including disposal and even o
Re:PC has met motherboards (Score:3, Insightful)
One mobo is not a big problem. But the zillions of circuit boards thrown away every year, when they're all taken together, *are* a problem. It's the same as smokeless zones - one campfire is not a problem, but an entire city with coal fires screws up the air.
You don't plan eating your mobo, but wherever they're shipped to (usually China) for "recycling", this shit dissolves out of the piles of boards and seeps into the water supplies. So people over th
Dammit.. foiled.. (Score:5, Funny)
Graphite... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dammit.. foiled.. (Score:2)
Re:Dammit.. foiled.. (Score:2)
In this case, would that be pendantic?
Lead (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dammit.. foiled.. (Score:2)
Now we baby them so much that the sissies make it to adulthood, mate with other sissies, and spawn yet more sissies.
Re:Dammit.. foiled.. (Score:2, Funny)
> mate with other sissies, and spawn yet more sissies.
And without them, we wouldn't have Slashdot.
Green Computing (Score:5, Informative)
It's too bad they don't do monitors. Those CRTs are the biggest source of lead in computers. Of course, I don't like electrons being shot at my face, so it's not all bad, but still. They are a pain to dispose of.
Cross your fingers for affordable OLEDs. (fp?)
Re:Green Computing (Score:2, Interesting)
I put two to four of them at a time out there and the trashman hauls them away. For our regular $15 per month trash pickup.
You probably just live in the wrong locality. I buy lots of used computers and scrap out a lot of stuff.
Re:Green Computing (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, my understanding is that outside of the States, regulations are even stricter. Of course, I've heard that in some countries, a recycling tax is added to items like computers, and the companies are thus responsible for the costs of safely disposing of/recycling the computers. Anyone who knows more about this care to share?
Re:Green Computing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Green Computing (Score:3, Interesting)
Green? (Score:5, Funny)
Aren't most Printed Circuit Boards already green?
Ah, nevermind...
Re:Green? (Score:3, Informative)
I wish I was joking.
New lead free motherboard... (Score:5, Funny)
*Supply your own solder.
Oh lordy (Score:3, Funny)
Please confirm my Slashdot friends! Woe is me...
Troll, WTF? (Score:2)
Whoopie! (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks VIA!
A nice start, but... (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't do a thing about the lethal levels of sheel negceba that go through most boards, not to mention the chemicals used in most non-paper capacitors, which are not only lethal poisons, but as tasty as anti-freeze to most animals.
Add to this the PCBs in the transformer that go with their power supply, and you've pretty much only addressed the fourth worst problem. The real problems have several orders of magnitude more impact on the environtment and worse -- solutions already exist to solve all three for prices only 5-10% higher than what they pay for existing chemicals!
Correct. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Correct. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Correct. (Score:5, Informative)
They also release a lot of heavy metals, so much so that warning about fish from lakes around most of the coal plants in East Texas have been issued due to their high levels of heavy metals.
Re:Correct. (Score:3, Informative)
Per KWH, coal plants are far dirtier than nuke plants -- in all senses of the word "dirtier".
Re:Correct. (Score:2)
Re:Correct. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correct. (Score:2)
Re:Correct. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well my analogy already showed how cyanide in the ocean isn't dangerous because it's so dilute, so you don't need to extend the analogy at all. And it falls apart at the point you're trying to make because it's extremely difficult to store it safely, unlike cyanide.
There are several general responses to this assertion. The first is that we can just put it in a large, specially-made storage facility like Yuca mountain. Unfortunately not only is that still dangerous (and the danger is compounded by having so much of the material in one place), it's also very expensive and these things WILL fill up. We already have way too much waste now that we can't get rid of, so it boggles the mind how so many people here are arguing that we should increase the amount of waste a hundredfold by opening up many, many new plants.
Another common solution brought up is to dump it into ocean trenches and let the earth's convective system draw it down and out of harms way. It's an interesting idea, but you can't just drop it at the ocean's surface over a trench and assume it will fall right where it needs to go. And the depths involved pose serious challenges to large scale movement of the waste down to the right place. Plus it is somewhat risky to just toss this stuff down there and assume it won't come back out until it's not radioactive anymore.
I know it's geek chic to assume everyone against increased nuclear use is against it "just because they see the word nuclear", but it's just not true. I think nuclear plants can operate safely (with intense government oversight and regulation--no, this is not something that you want "the market to decide"), but I don't think it's a smart idea to put more into operation until we figure out something to do with the waste that's more clueful than sticking it in a hole in the ground.
Re:Correct. (Score:5, Informative)
I had the opportunity to see some of the stuff that went into the big casques that go to Nevada. Pretty lame stuff. I was expecting 55 gallon barrels with glowing fluid coming out (not really, but it's more fun that way).
Not only that, but 95% of the stuff produced (yes, produced) by our fission reactors can be recycled, and reused as fuel. The rest of the 5% is in such incredible demand from academia and industry (for research) that it could make a fortune alone. Except our country is too fucking stupid (and paranoid) to recycle spent fuel.
Re:A nice start, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Capacitors on modern surface mount motherboards are either ceramic (aluminum oxide) with metal (silver, palladium, tin) layers or "dry" tantalum caps. The ones you're thinking of are probably the "wet" tantalum caps which were wetted with sulfuric acid, which is certainly unpleasant although I wouldn't call it a lethal poison.
You won't find any PCBs in the power supply transformer, either. Except in some very specialized high voltage applications, they've been banned for at least 20 years.
I have no idea what "sheel negceba" is.
Most of the lead in the environment comes from depleted lead-acid batteries, but there's no practical alternatives to those yet so tin-lead solder gets promoted to the top of the list.
The biggest concern with lead-free solders is the higher temperatures they require to make them melt. Since all of the components on the board are also subject to this higher temperature, there can be negative effects on reliability.
Re:A nice start, but... (Score:4, Funny)
It's someone talking out of their ass.
Re:A nice start, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about your other points, but PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyl) are most definitely not used in computer PSU transformers. Back in the 1960s they were used as a flame-retardant additive to oil in big "pole pig" transformers that supply houses or whole streets. When they were found to be carcinogenic (and only mildly so, I might add) use was discontinued and they are absolutely forbidden from being used in any equipment manufactured nowadays. In fact I think it's an offense to even own anything that contains them.
FWIW I've heard second-hand stories of old electric company techs who would literally swim in the stuff. Cancer rates for them weren't significantly higher than the general population.
Re:A nice start, but... (Score:2)
Took me a loooong while but I got there.
Well, that was a constructive waste of 20 minutes.
"Lead" (Score:5, Funny)
Lead-Free Mobo's (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lead-Free Mobo's (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lead-Free Mobo's (Score:3, Insightful)
No such thing as self-regulating "corporate responsibility". "Corporate responsibility" comes from a big (government) stick. The sudden move to lead-free is forced onto manufacturers by new regulations (EU regulations IIRC). You don't honestly think corporations came up with this all by themselves do you? Sure, I can picture it now, in a board meeting: "hey, let's raise our manufacturing costs by voluntarily reducing some of the polluntants in our products". Uh, riiiight. Now, back to the real world. Here i
Not the first lead free mobo? (Score:3, Interesting)
No lead but... (Score:5, Funny)
:)
It's a joke people...
you insensitive clod, (Score:5, Funny)
No leads? (Score:5, Funny)
Earth Day.. (Score:2)
Re:Earth Day.. (Score:2)
Re:Earth Day.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Earth Day.. (Score:2)
I'm old enough to remember the conservation movement. It was about not wasting stuff. Then it got replaced by the environmentalism movement and suddenly people
Re:Earth Day.. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I don't see the conservation movement returning (well, unless we run into a problem of a shortage or we overflow ourselves with unrecyclable wastes), I do see working towards 'green' solutions as a compromise for conservation.
It would be nice to bu
Re:Earth Day.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this just depends on what you do with the old mobo. Perhaps I am alone in this, but I rarely throw away working electronics. I can usually either find some use for them, or find someone who wants them. My last computer was given to my girlfriend who doesn't feel the need to upgrade as often as I do. I have given coutless parts to friends and family, because I had replaced them, and they could use them. About the only thing I have considered throwing away is my old 486, which I haven't been able to find a good home for. I haven't brought myself to do it yet, mostly because I am a pack-rat, that and the fact that it was still working perfectly the last time I fired it up (though I did put newer hard drive in it, to get it there). Even that, I would rather give to someone who will use it than put it in a land-fill. I've considered a school, but I think its too old for even them.
I guess my point is, it isn't the upgrade cycle that is causing the problem, its the idiots who throw out perfectly good hardware. Sure, it won't run the latest games well, but it might do well for someone's over-glorified typewriter.
Not because of our blue eyes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not because of our blue eyes (Score:2)
Re:Not because of our blue eyes (Score:2)
The whole thing seems a bit odd.
-molo
sure, it is all a big conspicary... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I will wait a year (Score:2)
Thanks EU! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think electronic components have a blanket exemption for now, but this exemption is coming up for review soon. Just to be safe, most companies (including mine, which is part of an exempted industry) are trying to come up with lead-free products.
Not sure how much of an effect this will have... I remember reading that on average, electric components are less than 1% lead. In addition, the substitutes being explored to replace lead solder (silver and antimony) may actually cause more groundwater pollution, because they are more soluble. Doesn't seem like it's much more than a feel-good measure.
A telling story (Score:3, Interesting)
How about..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about..... (Score:3, Funny)
The only way to get that water back when an ice comet crashes into the earth, and you don't want that to happen.
We're all going to dehydrate because of RAM!
Lead Free is nice but... (Score:4, Insightful)
props (Score:5, Insightful)
So, props to them for getting with it.
disclaimer - I don't work for these guys, nor do I buy their products. I'm just a concerned scientist
Lead free? (Score:3, Funny)
Or do they mean no lead-time...? it gets delivered as soon as you order it. Now that would be nice.
Just wondering... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just wondering... (Score:5, Informative)
The next problem is that because the metals bind to proteins, they stay there, so that as each plant or animal is consumed, there is a concentrating action as you move up the food chain. Thus, for example, herbivourus fish might collect a small quantiy of mercury, the fish that eat them have more, and the tuna that eat those have even more. Ok, that's not lead, but I can't reacall a specific example for lead at the moment - the principle still holds. It's worth noting that the typical human diet puts them at the top of the food chain.
There is a difference between lead as a metal, and lead in a compound. It should be clear that the lead that is the problem is bioavailable lead - a solid lump of the metal might not be the biggest source of lead - although I suspect that chewing on a block of lead would be as bad, or worse than the paint.
With lead in a fish tank, I suspect that the lead forms a thin layer of an oxide or similar, that reduces the rate the metal dissolves at. This is similar to aluminum and chromium, but I think it's less efective. The small lead released would probably be less damaging to the fish that the effect of other metals (for example, iron would make the tank acidic, aluminium would make it alkaline, and so on). That's a case of minisming hard (although I'd suggest that a plastic would probably be better).
[0] Non enzyme proteins tend not have that many bindable sites, and those that do generally don't suffer much. It's principly enzyme blocking that's a problem, in general.
How to desolder the capacitors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Without lead, am I going to be able to desolder the exploding tawain capacitors in order to replace them with good ones, or do I just have to buy a new computer every 6 months now?
(note to mods: if you still havn't heard of the capacitor problem, go google about it before modding)
Re:How to desolder the capacitors? (Score:3, Informative)
No lead just means using a silver/tin or such solder instead of lead/tin. You can still use normal soldering equipment.
Suspect found: (Score:2, Funny)
Great news kids! (Score:3, Funny)
Oooo shiney (Score:2, Funny)
sources of environmentalism (Score:4, Interesting)
If you view environmental concerns as a luxury good, it makes sense that people only addressed such issues after the average person in society accumulated a fair ammount of wealth.
to quote the Cato Institute [cato.org] here: [cato.org]
And to say that without capitalism there wouldn't be polution to begin with, is to say that it is bad that technology that allows humans to look beyond the brutish nature of the world.
Happy Industrial Revolution Day!
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
The solder problem (Score:5, Informative)
The trouble with lead free solders is that they all have considerably higher melting points than lead-based solders. The "standard" lead-based solder has a melting point of 183C. The best available lead-free solders have melting points in the 220C range. That's a big jump. All the manufacturing processes have to be reworked. Some components need to be redesigned for higher soldering temperature tolerance. Some components must be repackaged in different plastics. It's not trivial.
Here's a good summary [circuitree.com] of the issues.
Re:VIA is reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
VIAs reputation is poor at best. The last VIA board I owned (KT133) wouldn't post if you had a SCSI card and a PS/2 mouse hooked up at the same time. Search around on Google, most of the VIA chipsets are rife with problems.
Re:VIA is reliable (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I had no idea this was a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Way to get the lead out! (Score:2)
You should be punnished for that. Still, at least it wasn't a pun about German sausages, eh? They're the wurst.
Re:Way to get the lead out! (Score:3, Funny)
You don't know how lucky you are - if this was 500 years ago, you'd receive the medieval punishment for telling bad puns.
You'd be drawn and quoted.
Weaselmancer
Some Quotes... (Score:4, Informative)
and a complete lack of respect for science and logic."
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.
"Solar power and windmills are not a realistic way out. Nuclear energy is the only real and practical solution, but there has been such a hysterical reaction to it."
James Lovelock, developer of the Gaia Hypothesis.
"Extreme weather events are definitely on the decline over the last 40 years."
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, a meteorologist with 25 years experience at Environment Canada.
"They have cheated the case and I am angry about that, because that will come to our account. They use bad data, as well as for the Brent Spar as for the French nuclear tests. I am against nuclear tests, but one should use scientific, sound arguments
Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize winner for his work on the ozone layer, who cancelled his Greenpeace membership.
"In truth, what the environmental community has become is a money machine"
Alfred Runte, environmental historian, board member of the National Parks Conservation Association from 1993 to 1997 and author of Yosemite, The Embattled Wilderness.
"In 2000, say World Health Organization and other studies, malaria infected over 300 million people. It killed nearly 2,000,000 - most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
[...]
"[these deaths] are due in large part to near-global restrictions on the production, export and use of DDT.
[...]
"Where DDT is used, malaria deaths plummet. "
Paul Driessen, author of Eco-Imperialism - Green Power. Black Death. - "A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, he abandoned their cause when he recognized that the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted."
"Greenpeace is lobbying against industry plans to exclude products such as DDT from a POPs [persistent organic pollutants] phase-out."
Greenpeace annual report, 1999)
Re:Some Quotes... (Score:2)
Are you trying to say that we shouldn't care and dumping lead in our waste is OK?
Nice quotes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that DDT and nuclear power would do quite a lot of good for the world, by the way.
Re:Some Quotes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some Quotes... (Score:4, Insightful)
The green way is to recycle aluminum cans, which involves significant energy and chemical expenditure for the recycling. The old fashioned way, before the greenies took over, was to use returnable bottles. It was called "conservation". People didn't waste resources simply because it was wasteful. Nowadays we can waste as much as we want so long as we separate our waste into the proper waste containers first.
Some more quotes... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Green means.... (Score:5, Insightful)
For F's Sake people, use your brains and quit spouting propaganda at each other.
Green means finding a technological solution to the fossil fuel problem (finite supply, source of pollutants). There is absolutely no reason to think that a hydrogen powered SUV is in any way a step backwards.
Green means putting solar on your roof and becoming energy self sufficient. Maybe even sell surplus back to the grid. (yes I am aware of the pollutants that solar manufacturing potentially represents, however a) its localized and controllable, b) advances over time will lead to reductions in the pollutants, as scale of economy increases)
Green means finding a technology solution to feeding our children without destroying the land that we grow it on (or perhaps you think that the Dust Bowl was good for our moral fiber?) The answer here is not patented genetically modified foods, which can't be seeded from the previous year's crop and require exorbitant licensing fees to biotech companies.
Green means encouraging/funding zero population growth (i.e. replacement births). Yes this is "family planning". In most nations of the world family planning means just that, planning how many children to conceive - or rather how many NOT to conceive. But to bass ackward U.S. conservatives all they see is 'abortion' when they hear family planning. Sheesh.
Green means smart progress, yet people like you spout your bullsh*t anytime you are confronted by the idea that change can be good. No no! Protect my comfortable status quo! Never mind that even if we did nothing, eventually it will be changed for us by the laws of physics!
Sorry for the rant, mods do with me what you will..
Re:Pay a premium for the board (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pay a premium for the board (Score:2)
2. The story you linked has no mention whatsoever of "entire generations of people" being "maimed". Other than a casual mention of personal injury and property damage lawsuits, there is not a single hint that anyone's actually been hurt.
Wow, if you're representative of people in the environmental movement, no wonder you're all viewed as being crackpots.
Re:How much before? (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers and other electrical goods are a lesser but probably more common concern these days as it makes up a large volume of waste, I think most people know to dispose of car batteries and other things with large amounts of lead a
Re:So, what is in there? (Score:2)
--
Re:So, what is in there? (Score:2, Informative)
The current favorites are the tin/silver/copper alloys, such as this: http://www.alphametals.com/products/solderpaste/o m 338.html
Their melting ("reflow") temperature is only about 20C above the standard 63/37 tin-lead solders, so it's not too hard on the boards or