HERNDON, VA -- A new standard for simplifying materials declaration being jointly developed by several leading trade groups will be circulated for industry review in June.

In a joint statement, IPC, iNEMI and RosettaNet said the draft of IPC-1752 will be released for a 60-day industry review on June 1.

The standard will integrate existing efforts, including recommendations from a pair of iNEMI projects plus RosettaNet's e-business process standards for material composition.

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SHANGHAI -- UGS, a provider of product lifecycle management software and services, announced that Alcatel-Shanghai Bell has selected its Tecnomatix eM-Execution software for its board assembly operations and to provide traceability support and lead-free compliance.

Alcatel-Shanghai Bell will implement eM-Execution to provide full component, product and process traceability to comply with both customer and regulatory requirements. Alcatel-Shanghai Bell is also the launch customer for the new eM-Execution Lead Free solution as it prepares to meet the July 1, 2006 RoHS regulations.

"As the telecom solutions provider, we will continue to improve our product and process traceability to ensure quick response to market demands. We rely on UGS to further improve our shop floor data collection, analysis and management to meet the new Lead Free regulations," said Martin Lehnich, executive vice president of Alcatel-Shanghai Bell.

Tecnomatix is the digital manufacturing brand of UGS, which acquired Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. on April 1.

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LIVINGSTON, SCOTLAND -- Cadence Design has closed its design services unit in Scotland's "Silicon Glen" and up to 60 staff are expected to lose their jobs.

In a published report, the company confirmed it had put its local design services staff on a 30-day consultation period from April 10, and that "a significant number" of the 90 staff were likely to lose their jobs.

Tim Barnes, vice president for marketing at Cadence, said, "We made a strategic decision two years ago to focus on our software products, which design and develop integrated circuits for semiconductor makers and others.

"As part of this strategy, we must balance our design-service capabilities as makes sense. Our core business is software."

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