Higher prices and more failures predicted for defense electronics.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: TECH JAM

Defense and aerospace industries are bracing for a spike in the cost of manufacturing high-tech electronics for the U.S. government, as well as for a possible rise in the number of catastrophic failures of pricey military hardware.

The culprit is a three-year-old mandate by the European Union to eliminate lead from coatings and solders that are widely used in the production of electronics. The regulations--intended to ensure environmentally safe manufacturing of electronics--also are being adopted by key technology producers such as China, Japan and South Korea. Although the United States has no such rides, it is being greatly affected because it buys most of its electronics from global suppliers.

The issue for U.S. defense and aerospace suppliers is that the lead-free electronics that will increasingly dominate the commercial market are known to cause failures in military and space systems, government and industry experts say. NASA and the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency alone have documented $1 billion worth of catastrophic damage to satellites, missiles and other equipment. The failures were attributed to a mysterious phenomenon known as "tin whiskers"--the growth of hair-like substances on electronic assemblies that can cause short-circuits. Traditionally, lead has been added to solders and coating materials to stifle whiskering. Some scientists say that tin whiskers tend to occur when there is less than 3 percent lead in the coatings of a component.

The mandatory removal of lead from coatings and solders raises the specter of more malfunctions in military and space equipment as more components are acquired from global suppliers that are gradually shifting their manufacturing processes in order to eliminate all lead.

Microelectronic assemblies are now essential components of just about every military system. Solders are critical to the integrity of the electronics. While the risk of equipment failures may be relatively low for the commercial market that focuses on consumer products, it is huge for the Defense Department and NASA, says Craig Hillman, chief executive officer of DfR Solutions in College Park, Md., a Defense Department contractor. Lead-free solders are acceptable for making consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptops, which are regarded as disposable items that can be easily and inexpensively replaced if they fail. That is not the case with multibillion-dollar military systems.

The U.S. defense industry has no experience working with lead-free solders and coatings, Hillman says. Almost 100 percent of the Defense Department's electronics have tin-lead components.

Government contractors will be expected to modify lead-free commercial components in order to meet strict reliability and performance specs, Hillman says. That will drive up the cost of military equipment significantly. He estimates that adapting leadfree items into military-acceptable assembly lines will incur cost premiums of 50 percent to 200 percent.

"We can't move away from COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] technology," says Hillman. "We have to go lead-free, but we have to do it in a low cost and low risk...