To reduce the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in its amount, an environmental legislation called WEEE Directive was released on August 13th, 2005. Its aim is to remind producers of their responsibility for WEEE and to encourage the recycling and the re-use of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). The WEEE Directive defines 10 specific categories of end-user equipment, out of which the RoHS Directive applies to 8 of them. To find out more about the Directive, its interpretation and status, please click here.

Starting on July 1st, 2006 the putting of new Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) containing more than the permitted levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium and both polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphneyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants will be banned. Some of the categories defined in the WEEE Directive are specifically excluded from the RoHS Directive.

Also there are some exceptions to the RoHS Directive:

• military systems
• avionics systems
• equipment for national security
• own use built equipment (hobbyist)
• spares for products on the market before July 1st, 2006
• equipment for capacity expansion/upgrades for market-placed products before July 1st, 2006

In the B2B segment there are several requirements which have to be followed according to the WEEE:

• take-back policy has to be published
• concerning market-placed products before August 13th, 2005
  • you are responsible for cost of disposal if the customer is making a like-to-like purchase
  • if the customer doesn´t replace the product he is responsible for cost of disposal
• if your product was placed onto the market after August 13th, 2005 you are always responsible for cost of disposal

If your products are covered by the WEEE Directive you have to be registered as a producer with an authorized regulator in each Member State. Further, products have to be marked with the corresponding symbol in most of the Member States. (www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/Perchardsreport_July05.pdf)

Please do not forget that Kontron as a producer of embedded computers does not fall inside the scope of the WEEE Directive and the "Elektro-Elektronik-Altgerätegesetz" within Germany respectively. The reason therefore is that none of the Kontron-products is dedicated to any of the categories within the WEEE Directive.
Because of this, reset commitments with customers who are affected by the WEEE Directive can only be arranged based on individual contracts.

A self-declaration of your own has to be made, if you have decided to cover your product by the RoHS Directive. Therefore, you also have to be able to demonstrate your compliance. Your self-declaration should also be supported by a technical construction file (TCF) where all your decisions are recorded. Regarding marketing issues, there are lots of different "lead-free" manufactoring symbols, however, there is no legal requirement for marking your products belonging to RoHS Directive.

The transition to lead-free components will be an enormous undertaking as an integral part of the supply chain. Kontron is committed to providing customers the most current information related to the elimination of hazardous materials from the components they use. Kontron´s broad supply base, covering the gamut of electronic components, assemblies and processes, gives us the ability to spot trends early and at the same time identifying the unique solutions each component manufacturer adopts. Beyond providing information, Kontron Management is committed to action. Therefore various activities were initiated also in order to adopt and prepare the internal processes for the change to Pb-free materials.

Due to this situation all worldwide Kontron entities are concentrating their efforts on various issues to be ready for change to Pb-free products latest to the legal date. It´s our target to verify and validate all necessary changes and alterations very carefully before changing to Pb-free products in order to maintain the high quality our products and minimize any reliability risks. Each Kontron entity will follow an individual Pb-free-Roadmap which depends on the own progress in this matter as well as the individual supplying situation.
Each Kontron entity will also provide and maintain an individual product status, indicating the current product specific Pbfree status. Based on this most actual information our customers will have the possibility to check the availability of Pbfree products.
In general Kontron intends to continue offering all existing products based on a Pb-free technology as long as possible.

Each supplier of electronic components has a unique set of circumstances to consider as they eliminate hazardous materials from the products they offer. Currently a lot of conversion activities are ongoing at our suppliers. In general the most suppliers intend to be ready with this conversion latest in Q2/2005.
Kontron will continuously evaluate the component- and type-specific status of the offered Pb-free components in order to decide their implementation into our products and processes.
The availability Pb-containing component types and special component housings depends on their individual market situation.

Each Kontron entity will indicate the availability of Pb-free products to our customers via a site specific Pb-free roadmap. As soon as a product will be provided in Pb-free technology this terminates the discontinuation of the identical Pbcontaining product or product-type accordingly. This means, that the relevant Pb-containing product will not be available any longer.
If some Kontron suppliers will cancel special devices, Kontron will offer phase-out solutions to relevant customers with a last buy offer as far as possible.

Pb-free products and relevant packaging will be marked according to the conventions of JEDEC standard No. 97.

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