Cost of Leadfree Solder Bars

AJ

The metal prices are set by the London LME. The Tin prices went from 8,000 US$/tonne July 2006 to 16,000 US$/tonne July 2007. Check here http://www.lme.co.uk/tin_graphs.asp

Just change the dates to get the price differences over time, the further in time you go the more disappointed you will be.

A couple of years ago alloy 63/37 was a commodity and all manufactures had to set sharp prices to be able to compete. Now lead-free comes in many different flavors and many of the alloys are patented where royalties form an additional cost over the already skyrocketing tin prices.

Thank the EU commission for this mess.

Patrick

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Hello AJ,

The previous answers are correct; Sn has seen a spike in price ever since RoHs was implemented. Furthermore, the other alloys that have been used to replace Pb (because of RoHs) have also seen an increase in price. Sadly these material replacements already had a high price tag to begin with (Silver, Copper, Gold, etc...)�

However, I think you are more interested in a cost effective solution then an explaination of what you already know.

Your best bet to reduce cost is going to be related completely to the type of volume your company consumes for SAC0307. If you put together a blanket purchase order for 3-6 months, the volume increase will lower your pricing significantly (But, maybe not as much as you would like to see).

Another word of advice would be to purchase solder from a company that has the patent to the alloy configuration you are looking for, or one very similar (i.e. SAC0307, SAC0308); Or purchase from the supplier that ships the highest volume per month for that specific alloy or another that could be used in it's place(usually the same as the owner of the patent)..

Take a look at

www.senju.com

Senju provides SAC0307 bar and ships high volumes of SAC0307 as well as SAC305 solder bar. If your volume is over 1000Kg typically, Senju has very competitive pricing.

However, if you are looking for a very small volume of solder bar, this is very difficult to price well. Lead-Free solder bar alloy is already priced very high, and since it is made in batches from raw metal ore, it is very time consuming to manufacturer (typically small orders are considered more costly then profitable).

Companies that provide low volumes of solder bar typically do not warranty their product because the bar has been sitting in inventory/warehousing and has gone through various oxidation cycles. But depending on the product, high reliability may not be as necessary�

latest pricing I saw for SAC0307 solder bar at 1000Kg was around $30-40/Kg�

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Here's the solution AJ

Unfortunately our jobs will go with �IT�

http://www.verdantelectronics.com/process.php

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Yes, if cost is the concern. You can consider to try other alloys, like SCN from Nihon or SCS from Singapore Asahi, cost is definitely cheaper than SAC and SACX. I think the price is around 15~20 USD per Kg.

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