Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

Wetzlar, Germany -- Leica Microsystems has opened a cleanroom at its Weilburg, Germany, facility. Replacing the previous cleanroom in Wetzlar, the new facility will also bring together the assembly lines previously maintained at two locations.

The 594 m² cleanroom will be used for system assembly and integration, and for customer acceptance tests. The sensitive entrance, packaging and system integration areas correspond to class 10,000; and the 328 m² assembly is class 100,000.

The company believes that combining the cleanrooms and centralizing assembly in Weilburg will enable a more flexible, efficient use of manpower, reduce throughput time, improve quality and lower contamination risks.

To further enhance the use of qualified personnel Leica has begun to systematically qualify its workforce. Over half of the employees in Weilburg are either engineers or technical specialists. Thirteen people have already transferred from Wetzlar, and more are expected to follow.

KOKOMO, IN– Foresite will offer a two-day workshop series in Boston, Minneapolis, San Jose and Seattle this fall. The Understanding Process Residues & their Effects on Product Performance and Achieving Reliable Lead Free Performance workshops will provide information for electronics manufacturers transitioning to Pb-free assembly who are concerned with product cleanliness and long term reliability.

Topics include: ways to achieve the lowest optimum Pb-free soldering temperatures, controlling oxidation and the difference between cleanliness and contamination. Industry veteran (and Circuits Assembly columnist) Terry Munson will lead the classes.

The workshop dates are:

Boston – Sept. 21-22

Minneapolis – Sept. 27-28

San Jose – Nov. 2-3

Seattle – Nov .8-9

For more info and to register, visit www.residues.com.

PALO ALTO, CA -- Agilent Technologies has agreed to divest its Semiconductor Products segment to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Silver Lake Partners for $2.66 billion. The company also plans to spin off its SOC and Memory Test businesses as soon as practical in 2006.

Agilent will return the cash proceeds of the divestitures to its owners through a $4 billion share repurchase program to commence immediately. The company also intends to call its $1.15 billion convertible debenture, which potentially will reduce its outstanding shares by 36 million.

FRANKFURT -- Datapoints across the PC industry suggest that global PC demand is tracking significantly better than expected, largely due to stronger notebook demand. Accordingly, Deutsche Bank is raising its PC unit estimate to 15% from 10% for 2005 and to 10% in 2006 (from 8%).

DB expects PC unit growth to re-accelerate to 13% Y/Y in 2007 in conjunction with the debut of Vista (Microsoft's new operating system) and the beginning of a new replacement cycle.

As a result of higher PC unit estimates, DB’s overall IT Hardware assumptions are also slightly higher for 2005 and 2006 at 6% and 5%, respectively (vs. 5% and 4%).

SALT LAKE CITY--CirTran Corp. reported its first profitable quarter and the fifth consecutive quarter of growth and record sales in its recent SEC filing for the period ended June 30.

Iehab J. Hawatmeh, founder and president, said continued growth in domestic and off-shore business helped the company achieve an 11% net profit of $466,229, its first profitable quarter since going public in 2000. The filing reported an $828,193 improvement over the loss of $361,964 for the same period in 2004.

CirTran was also profitable for the six months ended June 30, reporting $264,501, an improvement of $1,210,087 over the same period a year ago.

The company also achieved record sales for the fifth straight quarter, reporting revenues of $4,309,184, an increase of 123% over last year. Net sales for the first six months was $7,229,649, a 277% increase over the first half of 2004.

In addition, CirTran's total assets more than doubled to $9,513,156 from $4,293,429 year-on-year.

Hawatmeh said that CirTran was "on or ahead of our strategic plan. This is the most exciting period of growth in the company's history, with our core business in Salt Lake City continuing to grow, attracting more and bigger customers, while our CirTran-Asia subsidiary in China has emerged as a player in manufacturing goods for the consumers and the sold-on-TV marketplace."

FRANKFURT -- Deutsche Bank has expressed concern over the U.S.-based EMS vendors' high-cost manufacturing footprint and Asian-based ODM/EMS vendors' increasing competitiveness for the past several years. The U.S.-based EMS industry experienced healthy growth in 2003 and 2004 as end market demand improved and Taiwanese companies were just beginning to expand beyond niche offerings. According to DB this trend came to an end in the second quarter of 2005 and is getting worse in Q3.

DB is forecasting U.S.-based EMS sales to decline 5% year-on-year, compared to a 50% Y/Y increase for Hon Hai. Hon Hai, now the largest EMS vendor, may grow by more than $8 billion in 2005 (Jabil and Celestica had 2004 sales of $6.5 and $8.8 billion, respectively). DB believes Hon Hai will continue to take share from poorly positioned EMS vendors like Sanmina-SCI and Solectron in the next year.

Factors contributing to DB’s cautious view on the U.S EMS industry include the excess of high-cost capacity and increasing number of competitors. In addition, the Taiwanese are becoming increasingly competitive on quality. While most U.S. EMS vendors have rationalized the majority of their high-cost capacity, there is still too much capacity at companies like Sanmina-SCI and Solectron.

At the same time, Taiwanese companies like Hon Hai and Asustek have expanded outside of their core offering and are taking share. Asustek, a manufacturer of motherboards, has become a major player in the notebook, server and gaming market, and recently entered the handset market. Hon Hai is manufacturing low- and mid-range datanetworking gear for companies like Cisco, and handsets for Nokia/Motorola.