Tin Whiskers: Electronics' Silent Killer

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Huckleberry
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They've ruined missiles, silenced communications sattelites and forced nuclear power plants to shut down. Pacemakers, consumer gadgets and even a critical part of a space shuttle have fallen victim.

The culprits? Tiny splinters - whiskers, they're called - that sprout without warning from tin solder and finishes deep inside electronics. By some estimates, the resulting short-circuits have leveled as much as $10 billion in damage since they were first noticed in the 1940s
Florida Today - Sunday, Oct 7, 2007.
http://img48.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tinwhiskersscan2tc0.jpg

Just recently where I work we had a large amount of electronics parts shipped back to us because some terminals had tin plating. I have never seen these tin whiskers before and I can't find a good explanation for what causes them to grow. There is a decent picture of some severe growth in the article.The article also states that Europe has barred lead from most electronic components, and I assume that a tin-based solder will be substituted.

Any ideas on what might cause this, or what will happen as all of these lead free electronics age?
 
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I could swear we had a thread on these a while back. I'll have to see if I can find it.

EDIT: Here's one. It has a link to another board with some good links to follow.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=59813
 
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Electromigration is a serious issue. At my work, we ended up holding up the release of an important product in order to understand and figure out a way to prevent electromigration in an important product (sells in the millions worldwide). Integrated circuit manufacturers had to figure out how to keep electromigration from causing dendritic growth inside ICs way back in the early days as well...

Here's a good intro article at wikipedia.org, with a number of useful links out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

After you read through some of the references that Fred and I have offered, feel free to post more questions here if you like. Preventing this problem is non-trivial, but do-able if you understand the issues.