Industrial automation specialist Yamashita is shipping a completely lead-free motherboard that it says complies with new green-computing directives from the European Union. The company built the micro-ATX AS-1210 board using lead-free chips and manufacturing processes supplied and developed by VIA.

(Click for larger view of lead-free motherboard)

VIA says its lead-free manufacturing processes will comply with two European Union directives: the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives.

VIA's lead-free initiative replaces lead solder with a composite of tin, silver, and copper. The technology is used in VIA's new Enhanced Ball Grid Array (EBGA) and Heat Sink Ball Grid Array (HSBGA) packages.

VIA launched its lead-free manufacturing initiative in 2001, with the expectation of ending lead use in 2004. All VIA Eden ESP, Antaur, and C3 processors are now produced lead-free, according to VIA, as are a wide range of VIA chipsets and companion chips, making it possible to produce totally lead-free motherboards.

Yamashita's AS-1210 moterboard is based on a VIA Eden processor and VIA north- and southbridges. It includes a Phoenix Award pnpBIOS, a VIA VT8623 video chip supporting LCDs or CRTs and up to 64MB of VRAM, AC97 audio, onboard 10/100 Ethernet, two-channel ATA133 IDE bus, USB 1.1 and 2.0, Floppy support, and a CompactFlash slot.

“Market demands in the embedded space are very dynamic, and we pride ourselves in being able to react quickly to changing customer requirements,” said Shinichi Yanagi, Managing Director of Yamashita. “By using the lead-free VIA Eden Platform, we are able to cut back on R&D and validation time, enabling us to be first to market with our products because we practically get the whole platform from VIA.”

VIA Marketing VP Richard Brown said, “The transition to 'green' manufacturing for VIA has been very smooth and we have been able to ship lead-free processors and chipsets since the end of last year.”

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.