Conflict Minerals Statement

There has been increased awareness of violence and human rights violations in the mining of certain minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries. Bittele Electronics shares the deep concern about sources of minerals from these conflict zones and is therefore committed to make our products and manufacturing process DRC conflict-free and obtain full transparency throughout our supply chain.

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Act) enacted in July 2010 imposes new supply chain reporting requirements on publicly traded companies to promote transparency and consumer awareness regarding the use of “conflict minerals” columbite-tantalite (coltan), cassiterite, gold, wolframite, or their derivatives (tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten) that directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups in that region.

As directed by the Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted rules requiring publicly traded companies to disclose whether they use tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten that originated in the DRC and if so, to issue a report identifying their products that are not conflict free and their due diligence efforts to determine the source and chain of custody of the metals.

Although we are not using such raw metals in our manufacturing process directly, Bittele is willing to work with our customer to gather all necessary information from supply chain to avoid using metals from DRC and surrounding countries.

There are some materials which contain metals such as gold, tin and tantalum are used in our products and manufacturing process. They are:

  1. PCB manufacturing -- ENIG finishing process – GOLD
    HASL finishing process -- TIN
  2. PCB Assembly -- Soldering material (Solder Bar, Paste, Wire) -- TIN
  3. Components -- Passive chip, IC, Connector, etc. – TIN, GOLD and TANTALUM

Bittele Electronics has either obtained, or is in the process of obtaining, information from suppliers concerning the origin of the metals that are used in the manufacture of our products. Based upon information provided by our suppliers, Bittele does not knowingly use metals derived from the Conflict Region.

Our Clients Include