Industry publishes roadmap on electronics interconnection technologies
ELFNET, the European lead-free soldering network, has published a roadmap for the European electronics interconnection industry, outlining key areas where research and development is needed. Many of the electronic tools and systems we use everyday contain technologies allowing interfaces and components to interconnect. In recent years, the industry has been addressing many challenges facing these technologies, such as ensuring that they meet 'greener' environmental standards and are adaptable for use in ever-smaller products. The roadmap details some 50 high priority challenges in a total of 34 key interconnection topics, and suggests research and development activities that could be undertaken to address them. 'The ELFNET Roadmap is a major deliverable from the ELFNET project. It is an important step forward in focusing European research on investment towards collectively agreed high priority topics,' says Jeremy Pearce, coordinator of the project. 'With this tool, ELFNET has met its key objective, addressing the challenges of fragmentation, disjointed funding mechanisms and poor communication in the European research environment.' Funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the ELFNET network represents key European players in electronics interconnection research, including leading academics, research centres and industry partners. The network aims to identify issues and develop collaborative solutions in response to the legislation laid down in the RoHS Directive, which came into force in 2006. The Directive bans placing on the EU market new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, among other hazardous substances. 'It is clear from the Roadmap that there is a vast amount of work needed to address current business drivers, environmental and consumer pressures,' says Dr Pearce. 'From the perspective of lead-free soldering, there remain major unsolved issues. Urgent concerns over a lack of knowledge in reliability issues have to be addressed and are a focus for high reliability applications, such as aerospace and defence.' Although the ELFNET project is now coming to an end, the team hopes that new collaborative projects based on the work of ELFNET will continue under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).