The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI), an industry-led consortium focused on strengthening the global electronics manufacturing supply chain, today announced that the majority of its OEM and EMS members strongly support the use of unique part numbers for RoHS-compliant components. The consortium released the following statement:

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. We are convinced that the only practical way to accomplish this goal is through separate part numbers that can clearly identify RoHS compliance and manufacturing process compatibility.

Source: Business Wire