Tin whiskers also occur on earth at ambient temperature and pressure. I’ve personally experienced tin whiskers growing between adjacent TQFP pins (resulting in

Tin whiskers also occur on earth at ambient temperature and pressure. I’ve personally experienced tin whiskers growing between adjacent TQFP pins (resulting in product failures). We successfully mitigated this with (1) electronic redesign so the whisker was likely to fuse (self-destruct melting via resistive heating) if it made contact with the adjacent pin in question, and (2) urethane conformal coating. NASA studies such as https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2010-Panashchenko-IPC-Tin-Whisker.pdf https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2010-Pan... show that urethane conformal coating is effective against tin whiskers. But that does add another chemical and processing step and its own hazards.