Click on the advert above to visit the company web site

Product category: Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Oki Electric
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 19 August 2003

Database sets Oki on road to RoHS
compliance

Request your FREE weekly copy of the Electronicstalk email newsletter. News about Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs and more every issue. Click here for details.

Oki Electric is to standardise a group-wide system, named Cosmos, for providing information on chemical substances contained in its products.

Oki Electric is to standardise a group-wide system, named Cosmos, for providing information on chemical substances contained in its products The operation will begin in November 2003, and will help the Oki group goal to abolish the six toxic substances named in the RoHS Directive from Oki products by the end of 2004

Oki will invest approximately Y10 million to implement the standardised system and expects the cost benefit to exceed Y50 million per year, along with a reduction in collection time.

Cosmos is a system that connects Oki's in-house component database systems and product design systems to determine the amount of a given substance a product contains.

In order to eliminate specific substances, it is necessary to examine whether or not the substance is used in each component and replace it with components made without that substance.

With Cosmos, users can easily discover which of the product's components contain a certain substance.

"In the past, only one of the four design systems was connected to Cosmos, which made it difficult for the other three systems to detect specific substances in product components", said Masayoshi Ino, Executive Vice President at Oki Electric, responsible for all the Oki group's environmental protection strategies.

"By standardising the system, the Oki group can share data on the substances contained in the components collected by different design systems during the green procurement examination.

Cosmos also reduces the collection time from several days down to several hours".

By collecting information on the substances contained in each product, it will be possible to identify regulated substances as well as scarce substances such as gold, silver and palladium, thereby reducing the time and cost for recycling and dismantling the used products.

Oki currently holds 40,000 data records on chemical substances contained in components on its database system.

In addition, Oki has started to expand information such as heat resistant temperature data to achieve lead-free solder and LCA (life cycle assessment) basic data.

Through the database enhancement and standardisation of design systems, Oki plans to enhance the Cosmos system further as a comprehensive tool to evaluate products' environment burden.

Oki Electric: contact details and other news
Email this article to a colleague
Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
Electronicstalk Home Page

Search the Pro-Talk network of sites