The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative will sponsor a tin whisker workshop and a component supplier/large user meeting at the upcoming IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) in Las Vegas (June 1-4). An all-day session on June 1 will review all of the NEMI tin whisker project activities to date. Two half-day sessions are scheduled for June 2. Users and suppliers will discuss mitigation strategies and acceptance test plans for high-reliability critical systems applications in the morning session, followed by an opening meeting of the Tin Whisker Accelerated Test Project in the afternoon. With the move toward lead-free electronics, tin is considered a drop-in replacement for the tin-lead finish currently used for component terminations. However, pure tin coatings may have a tendency to grow small filaments known as "whiskers" that could bridge adjacent terminals, causing system failures. NEMI has three projects that are working on various aspects of this phenomenon: accelerated test (attempting to develop tests to predict tin whiskers), modeling (attempting to understand basic cause of whiskers), and a user group (addressing how high-reliability, long-life systems or critical applications can be protected).For more information, visit http://www.ectc.net orhttp://www.nemi.org .