RoHS Strategy
The European Union's RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Directive 2002/95/EC states that: "Member States shall ensure that, from 1 July 2006, new electrical and electronic equipment put on the market does not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)."
The electrical and electronic products covered by the RoHS Directive are: large and small household appliances, IT and telecom equipment, consumer equipment, lighting equipment, electrical and electronic tools, toys, leisure and sports equipment, and automatic dispensers. Not covered are medical devices, monitoring and control instruments, large-scale stationary industrial tools, and military equipment.
KOTURA's SVOA is fully RoHS Compliant for all Six Restricted Products
This is the most commonly implemented form of the Directive. KOTURA's Single Channel VOA is fully "RoHS Compliant" and does not have any of the six banned substances (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, PBB, or PBDE) in amounts exceeding the allowable maximum concentrations defined in the Directive. The Directive delineates these concentrations as the percent of the weight of any individual homogeneous component used; not as a percentage of the aggregated weight of all components in an assembled product. For RoHS Compliance Conformance Certificate, please contact us.
KOTURA's 4 and 8 Channel VOAs are RoHS 5/6 Compliant
Due to reliability concerns with lead-free-solder processes, the RoHS Directive has a special lead solder exemption. This exemption allows the use of lead in solders for "servers, storage and storage array systems, network infrastructure equipment for switching, signaling, transmission as well as network management for telecommunication".
KOTURA's 4 and 8 channel VOAs are RoHS 5/6 compliant. The U.K. Department of Trade and Industry defines solder as: "alloys used to create metallurgical bonds between two or more metal surfaces to achieve an electrical and/or physical connection". Therefore, "solder" includes solder finishes on PCBs and components. In accordance with the lead-solder exemption, RoHS 5/6 products may or may not use lead in the component leads and/or PCB solder pads. KOTURA is working with its material vendors to convert to lead-free products and use 96.5% Sn, 3% Ag, 0.5% Cu solder in its products.
Starting with KOTURA's Single Channel VOA, all new products will be 100% RoHS compliant without claiming the allowed exemptions.
Other Restricted Substances
KOTURA has reviewed its products and to the best of our knowledge the amount of restricted substances (Cadmium, Hexevaent Chromium, Mercury PRB and PBDE) is not detectable or is below the target threshold limits as specified by the RoHS. With respect to spare parts to existing systems, Article 2 part 3 specifies "This Directive does not apply to spare parts for the repair or to the reuse, of electrical and electronic equipment put on the market before July 1, 2006".