BRUSSELS – Changes to China’s chemical regulations have been adopted for 2010, showing marked differences from the May 2009 release.
Among the changes to chemicals in products, the new regulation is applicable to products that release “new chemical substances in their normal use," a statement not mentioned in the 2009 proposal.
Furthermore, the 2010 amendment is one of the few Chinese regulations clearly referring to the GHS standards issued in Oct. 2006. This provides a clear link between law and standards, says Young and Global Partners, which has issued a report on the new regulations.
Third, the chemical classification envisaged in 2009 is gone. Three classifications exist under the 2010 amendment: general new chemicals, hazardous new chemicals, and priority hazardous chemicals.
Also, annual reporting may provide a framework to implement PRTR requirements in China long-term. Reporting requirements have been extended for producers or importers of hazardous new chemicals (including priority hazardous new chemicals).
Many promotional provisions for the development and use of environmentally friendly chemicals are in the update, Young and Global said. The Ministry of Environmental Protection may foresee natural phase-out of hazardous chemicals in China, as it imposes six-month earlier reporting requirements on producers or importers of hazardous new chemicals before it starts a periodic five-year review of chemicals to update the Chinese Inventory of Existing Chemicals.
The Ministry may expect hazardous chemicals to have been phased out in the market, making it needless to put them in the Chinese Inventory of Existing Chemicals.
The 2010 proposal has 25% more regulatory text than the 2009 version.
WOBURN, MA – Two free seminars on advances in limited access testing will be held in March.
Acculogic North American sales manager Bob Steel and application and flying probe product manager Greg Leblonc will present on Mar. 23 in Newton, MA, and Mar. 24 in Farmington, CT.
The seminars present recent advances in testing methodology, including design for test, new boundary scan tools, and flying probe testers.
The seminars are geared toward test engineers challenged with testing boards with little or no access, the need for faster test development cycles and better test coverage. Additionally, they are for those who work with an OEM or in a contract manufacturing environment, or who do production line tests.
Both seminars are sponsored by Acculogic and Precision Automation.
SMYRNA, GA – UP Media Group today announced a trio of electronics industry experts will moderate must-see chats during the third annual VIRTUAL PCB, the industry’s only virtual trade show and conference for the PCB design, fabrication and assembly markets. The two-day worldwide event takes place March 2-4, 2010.
ROSWELL, GA -- Rehm Thermal Systems, a maker of soldering equipment, has moved into a new Applications Center here.
MINNEAPOLIS – The SMTA has announced a series of webinars coming in March to be held in conjunction with Virtual PCB.
Go Greener in Your Cleaner, presented by Dr. Harald Wack at Zestron America, will take place Mar. 3. Attendees will learn about recent cleaning challenges, including the removal of flux residues under challenging low standoff components such as 0603 chip capacitors, while using pH-neutral de-fluxing agents, as well as alkaline chemistries with reduced VOC levels.
Also on Mar. 3, Root Cause Failure Analysis of PCB Assemblies will introduce the element of root cause failure analysis through the correlation of product and tooling design with assembly defects, including examples of actual product design, manufacturing tooling design, and SMT and PTH assembly process issues matched to actual product failures. The presentation will be given by Dale Lee of Plexus Corp.
Status of the Proliferation of Lead-Free Alloys: 2010, on Mar. 4, will provide an overview of the current Pb-free alloy proliferation, a discussion of new failure modes and how to minimize them and an outlook on how alloy convergence might occur. Ronald Lasky, Ph.D., PE, of Indium Corp. will present.
For more information, contact ryan@smta.org or visit http://www.smta.org/education/presentations/presentations.cfm.
Virtual PCB (www.virtual-pcb.com), the industry's only Web-based trade show and conference, is brought to you by CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY and PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB.