Unique part numbers

The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI), an industry-led consortium, has announced that the majority of its OEM and EMS members strongly support the use of unique part numbers for RoHS-compliant components.

The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, or RoHS, became European Law in February 2003. Together with the Directive on Waste Electronic and Electric Equipment (WEEE) which is setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods it is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic waste.

In a statement, the consortium said that demonstrating and certifying compliance with RoHS is a complex undertaking made more difficult by the electronics industry’s distributed design and manufacturing supply chains and the incompatibility between the current tin-lead (SnPb) and RoHS-compliant lead-free manufacturing processes.

Industry must have means of differentiating RoHS-compliant products that is common across all of the companies involved in, or contributing to, product manufacture, including component suppliers, component distributors, EMS providers, OEMs and their design partners.