On the 1st July 2006, Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation will come into force. It is an EU directive which in part aims to reduce the amount of lead used in the electronics industry. Come July next year, electronics manufacturers will have to ship products with lower lead content.
AMD are ahead of the game, having implemented and brought to market RoHS compliant products this month, a year early, you might say. Products include Opteron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Sempron and Turion 64 processors, along with various AMD chipsets.
AMD started looking at lead-free solutions for semiconductor packages as early as 2001 and has a R&D program dedicated to it.
"AMD is steadfastly developing effective technical solutions that reduce lead content and achieve RoHS compliance without sacrificing other product features" says AMD's President, Dirk Meyer.
That is of course the key: reducing lead content to comply with regulations without losing functionality or performance from products. If AMD have managed to implement their RoHS compliant products now, ahead of the regulations coming into force, then they don't need to worry about rushing out a solution come July 2006. Of course, all other manufacturers will be working up solutions as we speak, some will also have compliant products on the market already, but AMD has found cause to shout about their achievement. The trees are that little bit greener in Dresden, today.
