ADVANTECH has recently made a small yet significant contribution to environmental protection, by releasing the PCM-9371 single board computer that is Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliant.
This is the company's first SBC to be fully compliant with European legislation for environmentally-friendly electrical equipment.
In February 2003, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union formally announced the Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Directive 2002/96/EC on the restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS).
The purpose of WEEE is to promote recovery and recycling of old electrical products and to facilitate the treatment of electrical waste to cause as little environmental damage as possible.
The purpose of the RoHS directive is to restrict the level of harmful substances in electrical and electronic products.
All electronic equipment sold on the EU market from July 1 2006 must contain no more than the specified levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and heavy metal flame retardants.
It was not an easy task to produce the RoHS-compliant PCM-9371, as SBC manufacturers seeking to meet the new standard must carefully time the phase-in of new products. This becomes more complex when not all components can immediately be mass produced.
Some vendors only provide partially-compliant components and some only offer non-compliant components.
In order to meet RoHS, business and product divisions need to co-operate closely with their factory teams to ensure all output meets the required rules and deadlines.
The PCM-9371 is considered the first step of a long but necessary investment towards a greener future for Advantech worldwide.