Sulphur induced corrosion of electronics

Environmental conditions such as humidity, temperature, contamination and gases affect the reliability and lifetime of electronic products. Sulphur polluted environments include regions near volcanic activity, pig farms, rubber manufacturing plants, oil refineries, coalgeneration power plants, paper and pulp industry. Failure analysis of electronic products exposed to an environment containing sulphur gas typically show uniform corrosion and/or migration of silver and copper. Conformal coating is not always the adequate countermeasure against sulphur induced corrosion since gases can permeate through conformal coating and react with metals at the printed circuit board especially silver, copper and alloys hereof.