Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

NEENAH, WI -- Plexus Corp. turned in a sterling fiscal first quarter, with sales jumping 14% year-on-year to a record $328.3 million.

For the period ended Dec. 31, the EMS firm reported net income of $12.6 million, up from $3
million last year, which included a $900,000 restructuring charge. Both figures exceeded previous company guidance.

President and CEO Dean Foate guided for second quarter revenues of $330 million to $345 million. “Although we anticipate modest sequential revenue growth in the second fiscal quarter, we are encouraged by recent new program wins,” he said, especially within the defense, security and aerospace sector. He reaffirmed full-year revenue growth guidance of 15 to 18%."

Cash flow from operations was $19.5 million, and cash and short-term investments increased $11 million from the fiscal 2005 year-end balance to $119.7 million.

For the quarter, wireline and networking sales were up 5 points year-over-year and made up 42% of sales. Wireless infrastructure was 8% of sales, down 1 point. Medical was down 5 points to 28%, industrial and commercial was up 1 point to 17%, and defense/security/aerospace was flat at 5%.

Plexus’ top 10 customers comprised 61% of sales during the quarter, the same as in the previous quarter.
Juniper Networks, with 22% of sales, and General Electric, with 15% of sales, were the only customers representing 10% or more of sales for the quarter. Sales to Juniper were also up 22% sequentially.

Operating margins improved 50 basis points for the quarter and the firm projected further improvement of 70 basis points in Q2. That would bring Plexus' operating margins to 4.6%, up 250 basis points year-over-year.

PALO ALTO, CA -- Agilent Technologies and the Advanced Development Group of Speedline Technologies are conducting joint research on the implementation of closed-loop process control for paste printing PCB assemblies. The research will use Agilent's post-print inspection systems and Speedline's Accela printer to measure process performance in Pb-free manufacturing.

Based on a recent joint Pb-free study, Agilent and Speedline determined that the positional accuracy of the paste deposit relative to the pad is a key element to ensure quality in fine-pitch and small-device Pb-free assemblies. This suggests that closed-loop process control could be advantageous for quality during the transition to Pb-free manufacturing.

In follow-up testing still under way, the companies have demonstrated the potential to establish a closed-loop control method between the AOI system and the printer to manage positional accuracy of the pasted deposits.

Further details will be discussed during a session at the upcoming Apex show entitled, "Closed-Loop Process Control in the Solder Paste Printing Process." A preview of this technology and discussion of the research project will be available at Speedline’s booth, #1207.

NEW YORK -- Dover Corp. reported fourth-quarter sales rose 19% to $1.61 billion over last year. For the period ended Dec. 31, earnings from continuing operations rose 30% to $125.1 million, while net earnings were $116.1 million.

For the year Dover had revenue of $6.08 billion, up 17%, and earnings from continuing operations of $474.5 million, up 21%.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The SMTA is accepting applications through April 15 for its $5,000 Hutchins Educational Grant. Established in memory of past SMTA president Dr. Charles Hutchins and co-sponsored by Circuits Assembly, the annual award goes to a graduate-level student doing research in electronic assembly or electronics packaging.

Students can download and submit the entry form (available at smta.org/hutchins/hutchins.cfm), along with current academic transcripts, a letter of recommendation, a resume and a one-page thesis research abstract.

Presented annually at the SMTA International Conference, the grant is intended for the purchase of technical books and research materials, participation in electronics conferences and for living expenses if necessary.

The 2005 recipient was Leila Jannesari Ladani, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, for her project: "Effect of Voids Caused By Manufacturing Variation on the Thermo-mechanical Durability of Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu Solders."

SAN FRANCISCO – Some of the biggest names in computing have committed a collective $10 billion toward standardizing the Itanium platform.

Senior executives from a number of top firms who met yesterday in San Francisco to map out a strategy for Itanium say they are targeting the mission-critical computing market.

The announcement came at the Itanium Solutions Alliance’s first Executive League meeting. Representatives came from Bull, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Hitachi, HP, Intel, NEC, SGI and Unisys.

Itanium platform revenue currently makes up 58% of Sun's SPARC and 33% of IBM's Power2. Over 6,000 applications are said to be running the architecture.

In a statement IDC group vice president and general manager Vernon Turner said, “Itanium solution delivery to mission critical environments represent a new business model for enterprise and technical computing users bringing choice of hardware platform, operating system, and applications to environments which heretofore have been limited by proprietary vertical solution stacks. A change this substantial takes collective industry commitment and investment.”

The investment is comprised of planned funding of research and development, capital expenditures, sales and marketing, and ISV enabling activities.

Itanium application support has doubled within the past 12 months, the Alliance said in a press release.

The Alliance was founded last September, bringing together companies seeking to accelerate Itanium solution deployments.