Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances Directive

Commitment

National Instruments, a leading worldwide supplier of data acquisition, GPIB, and other measurement and automation products, is committed to releasing environmentally friendly products as part of the NI Hazardous Substance Reduction initiative. This NI initiative is a voluntary program modeled after the European Union Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, which restricts the use of harmful substances such as lead, mercury, and cadmium in new equipment.

The RoHS directive applies to eight categories of electrical and electronic equipment but excludes products in Category 9, Monitoring and Control Instruments, under which NI products fall. By complying, NI demonstrates a commitment to the environment and our customers by helping engineers design and develop environmentally friendly products using NI components.

Timeline

NI recognizes that eliminating certain hazardous substances from our products is beneficial not only to the environment but also to NI customers and employees. Since the 1990s, NI has researched and tested methods for reducing the use of these hazardous substances, and NI continues to actively work toward producing RoHS-compliant products.

NI began offering RoHS-compliant products in September 2005 and continued with the release of additional compliant products in 2006. NI manufacturing and engineering teams are working to adapt our products to use RoHS-compliant components and manufacturing processes. The transition to RoHS-compliant products will be done over a progressive timeline as some existing products are transitioned and new products are released with hazardous substance-free components. NI will continue to release RoHS-compliant versions of existing and new products as components become available. In 2007, NI plans to have a substantial number of core products transitioned to RoHS compliance with the completion of the transition by 2010.