Captain Scarlet
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2004
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New mission back at Cloudbase is to sort out a problem.
Captain Blue has been looking into the effects on Spectrum of the EC RoHS legislation. It may surprise you to know that we manufacture all sorts of equipment here at Cloudbase to assist us with our missions. Extreme-Fi is required in both audio and video reproduction of communications transmissions. We use what we feel are the best electronic components ever produced on planet Earth.
The first part of my mission is to look into the audio and video chips we use. These are: -
NE5532AN made by Philips. This is one heck of a fantastic chip, which has featured, in massive quantities in telecommunications, professional and broadcast audio on earth. We use the -AN version because it is guaranteed low-noise and the Philips version sounds so incredibly good which we need to be able to decipher weak communications from our agents in deep space. We tried the offerings from other manufacturers: Texas Instruments for example. Our speech analysis processors simply couldn't latch onto the audio information contained deep in the noise, whereas with the Philips device it was quite easy. Captain Blue discovered the Philips factory in Caen, France, Planet Earth had switched over to Lead-free manufacture of this device and obtained some for evaluation. They were just as good as the Lead version. Then something strange happened. We are not sure if it was a Mysteron attack, but the Caen factory was completely destroyed by fire in December 2003. A mission led by Captain Green ensured all 1,100 employees escaped without harm. But the problem, which ensued, is that all the documentation, masks and unique production equipment were lost for good in the fire. Philips report at their website the device (all versions of the NE5532 and NE5534) is now obsolete with no chance of further production. Luckily Captain Blue had stocked up with 3,000 of these devices. But I wonder where this leaves the large number of high quality analog audio manufacturers on Earth?
The AD817 by Analogue Devices is used here at Spectrum for a number of wide bandwidth applications in video and imaging systems. Because Gerry Anderson gave us puppets strings, it is very difficult for us to handle surface mount devices. Therefore, when we order online at analog.com we always buy the AD817AN dual-in-line package, which can be plugged into DIL sockets. Because of the EC RoHS directive the availability of this version is going into decline. Your Far-East mass producers buy zillions of SOIC surface mount versions and so AD are only swapping over to Lead-free on surface mount packages. When you fully adopt Lead-free in 2006 there will be no demand for the P-DIP version, so I guess they'll stop manufacturing them. Gerry Anderson has come to our rescue and has devised the Spectrum PPP (puppets pick and place) machine. However, I know there are thousands of small specialist manufacturers on planet Earth who will find it difficult, expensive and time consuming to convert from manual use of dual-in-line devices to surface mount.
I fired off an e-mail to "quality wizard" at analog.com to ask if any of their P-DIP devices were going to be made Lead-free. The reply said "Dear Captain Scarlet, We will not be offering these products in P-DIPs in lead free, because of declining sales on that package in general."
So it looks like lots of planet Earth electronics equipment manufacturers have got one heck of a headache not only redesigning their gear but also finding out just what they can redesign with. I'm sure there will be plenty of fiascos like the one with the Philips NE5532 to contend with.
One of your planet Earth journalists was talking to me over the Spectrum phone since I got back to Cloudbase. He'd been talking to a number of specialist audio manufacturers. Some didn't know about the Lead-ban, others said it didn't affect them (perhaps they're above the law?), and others said they don't use any chips so they wouldn't have a problem.
On the latter point, the Lead-ban does affect all components - passives, discretes and integrated circuits. If manufacturers like AD find it more profitable to go the surface mount route, will the passives and discrete transistor manufacturers decide to do the same? By the looks of things, vast numbers of planet Earth electronics manufacturers face an uncertain future
.
With just 22 months to go, will they be able to redesign in time? It can take 2 or 3 years to develop a new product range. Complying with the RoHS directive could be more difficult than designing a new product range because of the uncertainty of which components to use.
Here at Cloudbase we are under no pressure to comply with earthbound legislation
. We don't have to comply by 2006. We can swap and choose, but the uncertainty about what will be available to us is a pain. I think it's time to start sourcing our components from another planet.
Captain Scarlet
Captain Blue has been looking into the effects on Spectrum of the EC RoHS legislation. It may surprise you to know that we manufacture all sorts of equipment here at Cloudbase to assist us with our missions. Extreme-Fi is required in both audio and video reproduction of communications transmissions. We use what we feel are the best electronic components ever produced on planet Earth.
The first part of my mission is to look into the audio and video chips we use. These are: -
NE5532AN made by Philips. This is one heck of a fantastic chip, which has featured, in massive quantities in telecommunications, professional and broadcast audio on earth. We use the -AN version because it is guaranteed low-noise and the Philips version sounds so incredibly good which we need to be able to decipher weak communications from our agents in deep space. We tried the offerings from other manufacturers: Texas Instruments for example. Our speech analysis processors simply couldn't latch onto the audio information contained deep in the noise, whereas with the Philips device it was quite easy. Captain Blue discovered the Philips factory in Caen, France, Planet Earth had switched over to Lead-free manufacture of this device and obtained some for evaluation. They were just as good as the Lead version. Then something strange happened. We are not sure if it was a Mysteron attack, but the Caen factory was completely destroyed by fire in December 2003. A mission led by Captain Green ensured all 1,100 employees escaped without harm. But the problem, which ensued, is that all the documentation, masks and unique production equipment were lost for good in the fire. Philips report at their website the device (all versions of the NE5532 and NE5534) is now obsolete with no chance of further production. Luckily Captain Blue had stocked up with 3,000 of these devices. But I wonder where this leaves the large number of high quality analog audio manufacturers on Earth?
The AD817 by Analogue Devices is used here at Spectrum for a number of wide bandwidth applications in video and imaging systems. Because Gerry Anderson gave us puppets strings, it is very difficult for us to handle surface mount devices. Therefore, when we order online at analog.com we always buy the AD817AN dual-in-line package, which can be plugged into DIL sockets. Because of the EC RoHS directive the availability of this version is going into decline. Your Far-East mass producers buy zillions of SOIC surface mount versions and so AD are only swapping over to Lead-free on surface mount packages. When you fully adopt Lead-free in 2006 there will be no demand for the P-DIP version, so I guess they'll stop manufacturing them. Gerry Anderson has come to our rescue and has devised the Spectrum PPP (puppets pick and place) machine. However, I know there are thousands of small specialist manufacturers on planet Earth who will find it difficult, expensive and time consuming to convert from manual use of dual-in-line devices to surface mount.
I fired off an e-mail to "quality wizard" at analog.com to ask if any of their P-DIP devices were going to be made Lead-free. The reply said "Dear Captain Scarlet, We will not be offering these products in P-DIPs in lead free, because of declining sales on that package in general."
So it looks like lots of planet Earth electronics equipment manufacturers have got one heck of a headache not only redesigning their gear but also finding out just what they can redesign with. I'm sure there will be plenty of fiascos like the one with the Philips NE5532 to contend with.
One of your planet Earth journalists was talking to me over the Spectrum phone since I got back to Cloudbase. He'd been talking to a number of specialist audio manufacturers. Some didn't know about the Lead-ban, others said it didn't affect them (perhaps they're above the law?), and others said they don't use any chips so they wouldn't have a problem.
On the latter point, the Lead-ban does affect all components - passives, discretes and integrated circuits. If manufacturers like AD find it more profitable to go the surface mount route, will the passives and discrete transistor manufacturers decide to do the same? By the looks of things, vast numbers of planet Earth electronics manufacturers face an uncertain future
With just 22 months to go, will they be able to redesign in time? It can take 2 or 3 years to develop a new product range. Complying with the RoHS directive could be more difficult than designing a new product range because of the uncertainty of which components to use.
Here at Cloudbase we are under no pressure to comply with earthbound legislation
Captain Scarlet
