Green solution to electronic waste

Industrial nations around the world are struggling with a vast weight of electronic scrap. In 2000 alone, six million tons of waste electronic and electric equipment (WEEE) were generated, and in the European Union, electronic refuse is growing three times as fast as household waste.

This has prompted the EU to implement regulations to stem this growing tide. Beginning next year, manufacturers will be required to take back and recycle old equipment, although at present the logistics of this effort have yet to be finalised in many countries.

An additional challenge facing the industry is the requirement to eliminate the use of lead in electronic equipment as of 2006. At the world's largest international conference devoted to environmental protection in the electronics industry - Electronic goes Green 2004 - in Berlin, September 6-8 - representatives from leading companies are presenting updates on the use of lead-free soldering, as well as strategies for the ecological and economically viable management of electronic waste.

Among them are researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin, who are developing and testing the reliability and environmental impact of lead-free systems. This includes conventional interconnection technologies such as surface mounted devices (SMD) and state-of-the-art techniques, including wafer level bumping and flip chip packaging.

The classic approach to the disposal of old electronic equipment is shredding, recovering the copper and precious metals and converting the plastic into energy, in most cases through incineration. But a more economical alternative is re-using entire components in new products, simply to meet the demand for spare parts.

Together with colleagues from the Technical University Berlin, the IZM researchers have developed an automated repair and disassembly line, initially targeting the automobile electronics industry as a potential user.