10.1 INTRODUCTION

The integration of factors concerning environmental impact during manufacturing, use, and disposition of product is an emerging issue in design of electronics. The drivers for this in electronics include certification standards such as ISO 14000 and British Standard 7750; ecolabeling programs such as Energy Star, Blue Angel, and TCO; increasing internalization of waste mitigation and disposal costs into the product cost; and an increasing need for environmental accountability in global supply networks. One important aspect of product design for the environment (DfE) in electronics is consideration of environmental impact during the manufacturing stage. In particular, the fabrication and assembly stages of printed circuit board (PCB) are significant contributors to life cycle environmental impacts. Process models can be used as an analytical tool to develop environmental performance indicators for products. These process models, while modeling the manufacturing waste streams, also implicitly model the product parameters and can be used conveniently for product design optimization.1

In the following sections, techniques based on process modeling and product optimization will be introduced. These techniques may not only be implemented in PCB assembly design to minimize environmental impact, but also can be easily applied to other product optimization problems. First the process models for PCB fabrication are briefly described. A waste stream weighting scheme, which is very useful for comparing two or more dissimilar waste streams, is then introduced. Subsequently an optimization algorithm will be discussed for seeking a balance between the various board design parameters, such as board area, number of layers,...