Consultancy on Current Environmental Legislation and Future Trends
Legislation is placing increasingly complex demands on the electronics sector, with bans on substances, limitations on uses, declaration requirements, and requirements on power consumption, energy efficiency, and for power management.
Life-cycle oriented environmental optimisation of new production technologies and electronic products is one of our areas of expertise. The use of practically oriented evaluation methods is the basis for environmentally compatible product design and thus for the optimised environmental efficiency of microelectronic systems.
In particular in the electronic sector, the complexity of the equipment and the data requirements frequently lead to simplifications in life-cycle analyses which can influence the validityof the conclusions drawn.
The German Energy Consumption Relevant Products Act (EVPG) implements the EuP/ErP Directive on the eco-design of energy-relevant products in German law. Requirements for power consumption, resource efficiency and material compatibility for part of the CE labelling.
To identify weak points in the early stages of development, or to obtain the optimum geometry under consideration of external loads, finite element simulation (FE) are applied. Simulations representing the processing of components or assemblies, as well as sensitivity analysis and lifetime calculations can be performed. Thus, design alternatives can be evaluated in the design and development process or alternative solutions can be evaluated for existing critical failures.
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM